Marinated Murder: Book 4 in The Bandit Hills Series

by Blair Merrin

  “Great. Anyway, uh, I’ve been told that you’re something of an authority on Bandit Hills history.”

  “I dabble. What is it you’re after?”

  “A woman named Matilda.”

  “Last name?”

  “I don’t have one, but I’m betting she was around in the mid-seventies to eighties, and she had some association with the Maximoffs, particularly Dexter.”

  “Hmm,” says Spencer, stroking his thin beard. “Maximoff… and Matilda…” His eyes light up. “Do you, by any chance, mean Matilda Crane?”

  “I wouldn’t know if I did.”

  “Come with me.” He leads me to a study on the first floor, just off the kitchen. Every wall is lined with bookshelves, and every bookshelf is crammed to the max. He shows me one shelf in particular and runs his finger along the spines. I recognize these books; they’re all books about Bandit Hills. High school yearbooks, paranormal anthologies, history books… the whole of Bandit Hills in text is here on this shelf.

  “Ah, here we go.” He pulls out an old volume, the cover of which is emblazoned in gold lettering that says Bandit Hills: A Bicentennial History. He flips through for a few minutes, talking as he does. “The Crane family lived in Bandit Hills since it was established. They were bronze workers, and very good ones at that. But they fell on hard times in the seventies. The Crane parents died, leaving only the three siblings: Jeffrey, Matilda, and the youngest son, Dennis.”

  He leans over to show me the page. There in black and white is a photo of the family from 1969, showing a somber-looking mother and father, a teenage girl with glasses (who I assume was Matilda), a young man in his twenties, and a little boy that couldn’t be more than seven or eight. All five of them stand in front of a factory, a sign in view that reads CRANE BRONZE.

  “Bronze workers, you say.”

  “Oh yes,” Mr. Spencer replies. “It was quite popular back then. Parents would get their baby’s shoes bronzed for posterity. Busts, statues, vases, clock faces… they did it all. But after the mother and father passed, the business changed to young Jeffrey’s hands—he’s the eldest son there in the photo—and he just wasn’t as well-versed as his father was. It fell into ruin.”

  “What did all this have to do with the Maximoffs?”

  “Well, don’t quote me on this—my history might be a little fuzzy—but if memory serves me right, the Maximoffs stepped in and backed Jeffrey with a loan so he wouldn’t go under. But it didn’t save the business. When they defaulted on the loan, the Maximoffs had no choice; they took everything. The factory, the business… even the Crane home.”

  “That’s awful. What happened to the Cranes after that?”

  “I’m afraid my knowledge of them ends there. Far as I’m aware, they packed up what they could and left Bandit Hills, seeking work elsewhere.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Spencer. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Anytime, Cassandra, anytime. And please, come see me again sometime. You know I don’t get out as much as I should.”

  I leave Mr. Spencer’s house with a little bounce in my step; Curious Cassie has been satisfied. It seems that, according to the love letter, Dexter and Matilda had a secret romance that both their families disapproved of; and rightly so, since the Maximoffs took everything that belonged to the Cranes. Matilda was forced to leave town with her brothers, thus breaking Dexter’s heart before he could propose with the diamond ring. In the photo, Matilda wore glasses, so the silver spectacles in the box most likely belonged to her at some point, and…

  I stop at a red light and furrow my brow. The only question is, why was all that stuff in the Waverly house? Or more importantly, why was all that stuff in a bricked-off room in the basement of the Waverly house? It doesn’t seem like such a big mystery that Dexter and Matilda loved each other, so why seal her belongings in a box? Unless… unless Dexter did that, secreted away all evidence of his love for her…

  The car behind me honks loudly, and I realize the light has turned green. I step on the accelerator and check the time. I’d only been at Mr. Spencer’s for about a half hour; Mom can keep an eye on the store a bit longer.

  I decide to swing by the motel and check in on Penny. I really don’t want to give her the impression that I knew about the hotel deal and held out on her. She’s a friend, after all.

  There are only three cars in the motel lot when I pull in. Ouch. This whole lack of tourists is hurting everyone, but probably not as much as Penny. I vaguely recall her trying to explain to me once about a diversified portfolio—like I said, she’s as smart as they come—so I doubt she’s hurting too much.

  I head into the motel office, expecting Penny but instead finding a brown-haired man around my age, his hands stained with motor oil and clutching a bouquet of daisies.

  “Hi Cory,” I say to his back. He turns quickly, and a big goofy smile spreads across his face. Cory Wilkes is the mechanic at the nearby gas station, which his family owns. He’s in his thirties, but somehow never quite grew out of his boyish looks.

  “Oh, hey Cassie. You seen Penny?”

  “I was about to ask you the same. Are those for me?” I joke, gesturing to the flowers.

  He frowns. “Uh, I’m sorry, these are for Penny.”

  I roll my eyes. “I was kidding, Cory.” This poor guy’s had goo-goo eyes for Penny for as long as any of us can remember—going all the way back to grade school, probably. But as far as I can tell, Penny hasn’t ever showed interest in any man. She keeps to herself. She’s always very polite to Cory’s advances, probably because he’s a total sweetheart. He’s the kind of guy that still calls dating “courting” and insists that a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.

  “I heard she was real broken up when she heard about the hotel,” Cory says. “I really wanted to tell her, but I just couldn’t… I feel terrible. I thought these might cheer her up.”

  “Yeah, good idea. She’s probably off somewhere reading a book about how to break into a jail cell.”

  Cory frowns again. “Why would she want to break into a jail?”

  “Uh, never mind. If you see her, let her know I stopped…” Okay, so I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes. “Cory, what do you mean that you wanted to tell her?”

  His eyes get real wide. “Oh, uh… what? I didn’t say that, did I?”

  “Yeah, you just said you wanted to tell her. Did you know about it before today?”

  “Course not. No.”

  I raise an eyebrow skeptically, but I decide to leave it at that. No point in interrogating the guy. “Well, when you see Penny, tell her I came by.”

  “Will do, Cassie.”

  CHAPTER 12

  I get back to the shop to find that Mom has come up with an elegant solution to both of our problems: she’s taken the entire desktop computer from the back office and set it up on the counter near the cash register. When I walk in, she doesn’t even look up from the screen.

  “Welcome to Miss Miscellanea,” she says. “Please, have a look around and let me know if you have any questions.”

  “I have a lot of questions,” I tell her, “but all of them have to do with my sanity slipping away.”

  “Oh, ha-ha,” Mom says. I peer over her shoulder as she scrolls through hundreds of pictures of merchandise in an attempt to choose the best ones to display online.

  “Hey, hold on a second,” I say sharply as she scrolls past some photos of the bronze skull. I point to a thumbnail image. “Open that one.”

  Mom does so; it’s a head-on picture of the skull (no pun intended). I take the mouse from her and zoom in, inspecting it.

  “Cassie, what are you looking for?”

  “Just curious…” I click onto the next image, and the next, zooming on each. Finally I get to a photo that shows the underside of the skull, and I zoom in close.

  “What does that say?”

  Stamped on the bottom of the skull are two words, CRANE BRONZE.

  “So they made the skull,” I mutter.
r />   “What’s that, honey?”

  “Nothing. Thanks, Mom.” I relinquish control of the mouse. It makes sense that the Crane family would have been the ones to make the skull—a little morbid, sure, but it makes sense. But to add to my previous questions about the stuff in the bricked-off room, why was the skull included in there too?

  I ponder these thoughts as I conduct some busywork, dusting shelves and rearranging knick-knacks. My stomach starts to growl, and magically, my phone rings, presumably Dash with dinner plans.

  “What’s shakin’, bacon?”

  “Dinner just got postponed,” he tells me dourly. “The skull has gone missing again.”

  “Good grief. Want to take bets on where we can find it?”

  “Maximoff’s still here at the station…”

  “Right. Because weird stuff never happens around here. Come get me.”

  Five minutes later, I’m riding shotgun in Dash’s El Dorado as we make our way towards Maximoff’s place.

  “So the skull went missing in broad daylight,” I ask Dash.

  “Yup.”

  “With you and Phil and Sharon there at the station?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And the security tape’s blacked out.”

  “Sure was.”

  “You know what this probably means, right?”

  “Sure do.” Dash turns an attractive shade of pale green, because it most likely means that we’re dealing with a supernatural entity, and I’d bet my left arm I know who it is.

  We arrive at the Maximoff house and the wrought-iron gate is still open. The front door is still unlocked. Apparently this guy does not give a rat’s behind if people invade his home. And sure enough, we find the bronze skull on his kitchen countertop, in the exact same position I found it that morning.

  “Hey,” I call out to no one in particular, “he’s in jail. Just so you know.”

  “Cassie, it really creeps me out when you try to talk to them,” Dash says. “Let’s just grab it and go.”

  “Go ahead, then.”

  He hesitates. “…I don’t want to touch it. Can’t we put it in a bag or something?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud…” I march into Maximoff’s living room, strip a throw pillow, return to the kitchen and drop the skull into the pillowcase. “That better?”

  “Much, yes. Thank you.”

  On the way back into town with the skull between my feet, I idly comment, “I saw Cory Wilkes today.”

  “Oh yeah? How’s he doing?”

  “He, uh, seems to have known about the hotel deal before anyone else.”

  Dash shrugs. “Makes sense. Remember Bill’s assistant, Rex? He’s related to Cory somehow. Through marriage, I think. They probably talk.”

  “Yeah, they probably do,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant.

  Dash looks at me from the corner of his eye. “What are you thinking, Cassie?”

  “Oh, nothing.” I squirm in my seat. “It’s just that, everyone knows that Cory holds the biggest candle on the planet for Penny, right? And if he knew about it the hotel, isn’t it in the realm of possibility that he, I don’t know, did something about it?”

  Dash shakes his head in disbelief. “You’ve met Cory Wilkes, right? The guy doesn’t have an unkind bone in his body.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And don’t start in with that ‘perfect cover’ stuff. We’ve known Cory for years.”

  “I’ve known Bonnie for years. That didn’t stop you from questioning her.”

  “Bonnie’s possession was the murder weapon!”

  Eh, he’s got a point there. “I’m just spitballing,” I say.

  A few silent moments go by, and I can tell Dash is thinking about it. He smacks the steering wheel with his palm. “Okay, okay. I’ll talk to Cory at some point soon. Let’s just get that creepy thing back to the station.”

  “Yeah, by the way, how do you plan on keeping it from roaming again?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to have someone watching it at all times.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Dash and I head back to the station, where we hand off the skull, in the pillowcase, to Phil. He thanks us and promises that he won’t let it out of his sight.

  Then he leans in close to me and says quietly, “If you’ve got anything to say to him, do it now. He talked to his lawyer and got an order for release. The magistrate says the charge won’t stick.”

  I nod and head back toward the holding cell, where Dexter Maximoff sits on the bench with his head hung low. He hears my footfalls and slowly looks up at me.

  “You again,” he mutters. “What now?”

  “Mr. Maximoff,” I say gently, “I know about Matilda.”

  He scoffs. “You know nothing.”

  “Then why not explain it to me?”

  He stands. “That part of my life is long over. Why do you want to know so badly?”

  I wait a moment before responding… mostly because “I’m just curious” isn’t a very good answer. The simple truth is, I like a good mystery, especially when it doesn’t have to do with a murder. The easiest answer is that it distracts me from thinking about poor Bill and his case.

  I tell him, “Those items found their way into my shop, and usually things like that happen for a reason. There was a letter, and a pair of eyeglasses, and… a ring.”

  His mouth falls open a little when I mention the ring. “Her ring?” He approaches the bars and wraps her hands around them. “You have her ring?”

  I nod.

  His face falls. “That means… she left it behind.” He lifts his eyes to mine, and there’s such an intense sadness behind them it breaks my heart. “Can I have it back?”

  “Of course. Far as I’m concerned, it belongs to you.” I pause, and add, “But… in return, I wouldn’t mind some information. How did her belongings end up in the Waverly house? Did you put them there?”

  He sighs heavily and sits again on the bench in the cell. “Fine. You win.” He wrings his hands nervously. “Matilda was nineteen when I met her. I was twenty. Crane Bronze was still in business at the time. I was smitten from the first time I laid eyes on her. That same year her parents died. It sounds terrible, but that tragedy brought us closer together.

  “Eventually her older brother Jeffrey ran the business into the ground. My parents stepped in and gave them a loan to keep them afloat, but he squandered it. My folks had no choice; they took the business and their house. They were homeless. With nowhere else to go, they squatted in the Waverly house until they could figure out what to do.

  “I proposed to Matilda in secret. I wanted to save her from that life, to take care of her forever. But her brothers found out, and naturally, they hated me and my family. When my parents discovered what I’d done, they…”

  He trails off, staring at the floor.

  “What did they do?” I ask, inching as close to the bars as I can.

  “They paid the Cranes a very generous sum to leave town, and to take Matilda with them. The money was for them to never step foot in Bandit Hills again, and for her to break all contact with me. My parents thought Matilda was bad news, and they didn’t want to be associated with the Cranes any longer. So they packed up, collected their money, and left. And it would seem that Matilda left some… belongings behind.”

  He looks up at me, his gray eyes misty. “So there you have it. Does that sate your curiosity? Is that enough for you?”

  “I… I’m sorry, Mr. Maximoff. I had no idea.”

  “I know you didn’t.” He wipes his eyes with his fingers. “She was the great love of my life. There was never anyone else after her.”

  I stand there stupidly for a minute, not knowing what to say. Finally I mutter one more “Sorry” and retreat down the hall to Phil and Dash.

  “Hey,” Dash says, “you okay?”

  “Yeah, fine. I’m going to head back to the shop.”

  “You don’t want to eat?”

  “Not hungry.”


  “Okay.” He looks concerned, but he doesn’t push it. “I’ll call you later?”

  “Yup.”

  Back at Miss Miscellanea, I send Mom home with Kodiak, so it’s just me and Xerxes in the store. Dusk falls quickly, and I honestly can’t even say who or how many customers come and go in the couple of hours until closing time; my mind is still on Maximoff and Matilda. I just can’t imagine what that’s like, to have someone you love torn away from you by the people that are supposed to care for you.

  I close my store at eight o’clock. That’s pretty early for most places, but not for Bandit Hills; we’re not very fond of being out after dark, even on a well-lit street like Main. Too much weirdness goes on in the shadows. And it being well into autumn, the sun has long set by the time I flip the “open” sign to “closed.”

  I grab a broom and set about my closing duties—a bit of clean-up, then going over receipts, counting the till, locking the doors, etc.

  Or rather, that’s my intention. No sooner do I grab the broom than something gleaming in the florescent lights catches my eye.

  There, leering at me from atop the glass counter, is the bronze skull.

  CHAPTER 14

  Most people, at this point, might scream. They might jump in fright. They might immediately call the police, or the National Guard, or the Ghostbusters.

  But this is just par for the course for me, so instead of doing any of that, I groan. To the empty store, I say, “Look, I’m tired and kind of depressed and just generally not in the mood to be haunted, ‘kay? So unless you want me to call Marla June and exorcise your ethereal butt right out of here, maybe we can just pick this up tomorrow?”

  The skull suddenly slides across the glass counter and crashes into the cash register.

  “Hey!” I shout. “You’re going to dent it!”

  The skull slides back a few feet, and then crashes again into the register. And this time, it does dent it.

  “That’s enough, Bill!” I scold. I’m certain the ghost is Bill, because (a) who else would it be? and (b) it’s not uncommon for me to be haunted by murder victims.