“You’ll never guess,” she whispered into the phone. “Are you sitting down?”
“What is it?”
“Tom Hatchett is dead.”
Chapter Nine
“What?” I was reeling from that one.
“Yes. Somebody killed him.”
“Who? How do you know?”
“Celinda is here. She found the body. She wants our help. She thinks she’s got to hide.”
“Celinda?” My brain was spinning. “Who’s she running from? The murderer…or the cops?”
“I’ve been talking to her and you know what? I believe what she’s telling me. And I think she’s in danger. So if you let her come over and stay in your house….”
“What?”
“No, really Mele. Wait until you talk to her. She’s one scared little lady and I think we should help her.”
“Really? Then why not let her stay in your house?”
“We thought of that. But I have no way for her to hide her car. You’ve got that barn thing. She could pull in there and no one would ever know she was anywhere nearby.”
At first I thought this was absolutely crazy, but the more Jill talked, the more I began—begrudgingly—to think maybe she was right. I told Jill I would have to talk to Bebe and call her back.
“Okay, but hurry. I think I see Roy’s car pulling up into the parking lot. I’m going to hide Celinda in my office for now.”
Great. Just what I needed—another secret I would have to keep from Roy. Just the thing for a healthy relationship.
Bebe’s first reaction was a lot like mine.
“How can we have that woman come stay with us when they haven’t ruled her out as the murderer?”
“Listen,” I suggested, “let’s hear her out and then make up our minds. If it still seems risky, we can make up a bed for her in the barn.”
And so I called Jill and told her Celinda could come. When she arrived, I went out and showed her how to pull her car into the barn, then brought her into the kitchen. Bebe had a nice pot of tea and three cups ready to go.
“Oh,” Celinda sighed as she sat down at the kitchen table and reached for a tea cup. “What a day.”
Bebe and I exchanged a glance and I slipped down into a chair and leaned toward Celinda. “I don’t think I told you how sorry I am about what happened to your husband,” I said gingerly. “I know that was a devastating loss.”
She nodded and took a deep breath. “Yes. We had our ups and downs, but all in all, it was a good marriage while it lasted.”
“Uh…” I bit my lip, not sure how to begin. “So, about Tom Hatchett…”
Celinda flattened both palms on the table and looked like a woman who had just decided to take over a boring meeting and talk some sense into everyone. “Okay, here’s the deal. In a nutshell, as it were. Jerry was in Santa Barbara selling silver antiques. I was attending an art show in Cambria. At the last minute, before I left, Jerry gave me a call and said he was coming on home a day early. I went on to Cambria, but I was stewing. I had an ugly suspicion that he was planning to come back when he knew I wasn’t going to be there in order to have a tryst with Astrid.”
“Oh no,” said Bebe faintly, looking uncomfortable.
Celinda nodded. “It ate at me until I couldn’t stand it any longer. So I came back, determined to catch them together, determined to have it out with him once and for all. But…” Her voice broke. “But when I got there and walked into the library…there he was on the floor. Dead. I…I didn’t know what to do. I was in a panic. I was dreadfully upset by his death, of course, but there was also the fact that I’d come racing home in a jealous rage. How did that look? Not so good. I called…a friend and asked his advice. He told me to go back to Cambria as though nothing had happened. That we would all think more clearly in the morning. So…so I did.”
“Oh boy,” I muttered. The friend had to be my boss, Vance. That certainly wasn’t the best advice he could have come up with.
“Now I regret doing that, of course,” she said. “I should have known my nosy neighbor would see me coming and going. He keeps track of everyone on the block—takes pictures, keeps a notebook and jots down everything we do. And he let me know right after the detectives cleared out this morning that he’d seen me. He said he was perfectly willing to keep that quiet—as long as I forked over some dough.”
“Blackmail?” Bebe said, her eyes wide.
Celinda nodded. “You got it. I turned him down flat. I’ve been around the block enough times to know that going down that road is nothing but a nightmare in disguise. But I also knew that I was going to have to go in and tell the truth to the cops.” She shrugged. “So I did.”
“So you’ve talked to the police about it?” I asked, just wanting to make sure.
“Oh yeah. Even though it makes me look guilty as hell.” She shook her head. “I spent a long afternoon at the police station answering questions. They finally let me go, but I’m a ‘person of interest’ now.”
I nodded. That would seem to be the logical consequence.
“Do they have any idea who might really have killed Jerry?” I asked her, feeling a bit callous—but it had to be asked at some point.
She gave me a sharp look and said, “They don’t, but I do. I think Astrid did it. I think she and Jerry had a falling out, he told her to get lost, he turned away and she bashed him with that heavy old fireplace shovel.” Her eyes actually misted for a moment. “That thing was one of Jerry’s favorite tools. He loved that it had so much weight and heft. Now it’s killed him.”
I was shaking my head. “But Astrid has an alibi,” I noted.
She glared at me. “Oh sure. Some other guy she’s had on her string of suckers. He’ll probably say anything she asks him to.”
“You don’t think he’s credible?”
“Of course not. How the police can even pretend to believe that wild story I’ll never know.”
I frowned, thinking that over. “Maybe they’re pretending to believe him while they watch his actions,” I posited. “Hoping to keep him off guard.”
She groaned. “You’ve got more faith in them than I have.” Then her face changed. “Oh yeah, I forgot. You’re going with one of them, aren’t you?”
I ignored that. “Do you have a backup suspect, in case her alibi pans out?”
Her mouth tightened. “I did have one.”
“Oh?”
“Tom of course. Only now he’s dead too.”
Interesting.
“How about your friend Richard?” I said, and then I almost clamped my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say it. The emotion that flared behind her eyes when she heard it almost looked like fear. But it was a logical thought. After all, antiques had gone missing. Hadn’t they?
“That’s ridiculous,” she said hotly. “Richard and Jerry were business partners and close friends. Richard wouldn’t have done anything to hurt him.”
“Of course,” I murmured. “Sorry.”
Bebe poured her another cup of tea and asked, “So when did you find out about Tom?” To me it felt more like she was just trying to change the subject than anything else, but Celinda went with it immediately.
“When the police let me go, I went home and marched right over to Tom’s house to let him know what I thought of his snooping and snitching. And there he was, dead as a doornail, lying there in his own front yard, a bullethole in his chest.”
I winced. “Poor Tom. A bullet, huh?”
“Poor Tom! How about poor me? Now another man I had something against is a goner. It really does seem like someone is trying to frame me for something. Doesn’t it?”
“Hmm.” I thought it was interesting that she thought everything revolved around her, one way or another. After all, she wasn’t one of the dead guys. But I did have some sympathy. After all, that meant two people in close proximity to her were gone. Who was going to be next?
“So...did you call the police this time?”
She sighe
d. “I didn’t want to. I called my friend again and he said I should do it. So I did.”
“And?”
She shrugged. “They questioned me for another hour. What a waste of time. And when I demanded police protection, seeing as how I might be the next target of the killer, they told me to go stay in a hotel.” She looked outraged. “Can you imagine? A hotel? As if no one could find me that way. Hah!”
“So you decided to come here.”
“No. But Jill suggested it. And I thought it might do.”
“Thanks a lot Jill,” I muttered. But Celinda didn’t pay any attention and Bebe seemed distracted.
“We do have an extra bedroom,” she said, frowning. She glanced at me and we both thought about Mandy and her little dog. “But it’s…it’s kind of full of things.” Her face cleared. “But not to worry. I can take her….uh, the things into my room. That will take care of that, won’t it?” She looked at me for affirmation.
I shrugged, feeling helpless. I was more convinced every minute that this was a horrible idea. But we seemed to have stepped onto a juggernaut and I wasn’t sure how we could get off again without getting pretty banged up.
We talked for a bit longer, then squared away the bedroom situation. It was getting late and we were going to bed, but I went out into the back yard to have one more try at connecting with Aunty Jane. I walked up and down the flowerbeds and called softly, but she didn’t respond.
I was on my way back to the back door when I happened to glance over and notice that the drapes to the spare bedroom had an opening large enough for me to see into one side of the room. Celinda was busy stowing something under the bed and I was just in time to see it happen.
I shrank back into the shadows, my heart thumping in my chest. What was she hiding? If it was a gun….!
I watched for a few more minutes, but she didn’t do anything else suspicious. She was unpacking her bag and putting things on hangers. I calmed down. Now would a person who planned to commit a couple of murders be doing something like that? It didn’t seem likely.
I went on into the house, taking deep breaths and trying to convince myself there was nothing to fear. But I still wanted to know what she’d been hiding under the bed.
As I came into the hallway, she came out of the spare bedroom.
“The bathroom?” she asked, waving a toothbrush at me.
I pointed it out to her and waited until she’d closed the door, then headed quickly into the spare room. I knew I didn’t have much time. I dropped down to look under the bed. Sure enough, she’d stashed a large carryall there. I pulled it out and opened it. Inside there were a few large pieces of antique silver, a money belt, a stack of papers and a notebook. No gun. No weapon of any kind. I let my breath out and began to feel almost giddy with relief.
Then I noticed the name, embossed in gold, on the front cover of the notebook. Thomas Hatchett, it said. It belonged to poor, newly murdered Tom. Why would Celinda have it?
I heard the bathroom door open and I jumped up, realizing it was already too late to make a clean get-away. I looked at the notebook still in my hand. I didn’t have time to put it away. In fact, I barely had time to kick the carryall back where she’d put it and jam the notebook into the seat of my jeans before Celinda appeared in the doorway.
Outrage flared in her eyes. “What are you doing in here?” she demanded.
“Who, me?” I blinked at her, trying for an innocent look but failing badly. “I…I just wanted to make sure you had everything you need.” Then a stroke of genius came to me. “And I needed to get the blouse I’m planning to wear tomorrow out of this closet,” I said, reaching in and grabbing the first thing on a hanger I made contact with. I pulled out a huge purple jersey shirt that must have belonged to some linebacker out of Bebe’s past.
“That?” Celinda said suspiciously.
“Uh…yeah. It’s dress-down day at work.” I waved it around, knowing it would never fit me. My smile was as phony as hers was stilted.
“Well, have a good night. I guess.”
She still didn’t believe me. Let’s face it—who could? But I was making my way out of the room, stepping backwards toward the door. I couldn’t turn. I had something square and rigid in the back seat of my pants and she would surely wonder what it was if I let her get a glimpse of it.
“So, let me know if you need anything,” I babbled as I turned the corner and closed the door, all without once turning my back her way.
I breathed another sigh of relief as I made a break for it and slipped into my own bedroom, dropping the shirt on the floor and pulling the notebook out and slamming it into my desk drawer. All done without Celinda realizing I had the thing. I was proud of that.
But I left the room again, just as my cell phone buzzed. It was Jill.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Why?” I whispered as I walked out into the living room. “Are you feeling guilty that you sent a possible murderer to spend the night with us?”
There was a moment of silence. “You know what,” she said at last, very softly. “I kind of am. I mean, it seemed like the perfect solution, but once she was gone I started thinking and I realized it might not be the best thing to do. I mean, what do we really know about Celinda?”
“Too late. She’s here for the duration. We’ll just have to lock our doors and hope for the best.”
“Oh Mele! I’m coming over to help you!”
“Jill, Jill, I’m teasing you. She’s fine. I mean, even if she is the murderer, she has no reason to want us dead. We haven’t done anything to her. We aren’t threats to her in any way.” I felt a twinge as I thought of the notebook I now had in my possession. But I pushed that away. “So rest easy.” I winced, thinking of how hard it was going to be for any of us to fall asleep tonight.
“You’ll call me right away if anything happens?”
“Sure.”
“Do you want me to call Roy or anything?”
I hesitated, then decided against it. I was pretty sure that from Celinda’s point of view, the cops were as much to be avoided as anyone. Well, maybe not as much as the real murderer who might be after her. If it wasn’t her. Which I was almost 90 percent sure it couldn’t be. Wasn’t I?
I was so tired by the time we actually went to bed, I fell asleep right away. I was jerked awake at about 3 in the morning when the world went crazy. At first, I thought it was the cats howling. Then I was sure it was a storm trying to rip the roof off the house. I ran out into the living room and Bebe was doing the same. We stared at each other as the walls seemed to shake and the air was filled with screeches and howls.
“What is it?” Bebe cried, grabbing me by the arm. “What’s happening?”
By then I was awake enough to be pretty sure I knew.
“The ghosts,” I told her, trying to breathe around my shock and fear and gasping with the effort. “The Pennington ghosts.”
She stared at me wildly, grabbing harder. “What do they want?”
I shook my head, but it was no use pretending. I knew what they wanted. “They want Mandy back,” I told her.
Her eyes widened and she shook her head. “No! No, they can’t have her!” She ran back into her bedroom. I knew she was going to try to protect Mandy, even though she couldn’t see her.
The noise was horrifying. I kept trying to think straight. What should we do? Where was Aunty Jane!
There was a crash, as though a tree had fallen on the house, and then a weird, piercing scream that chilled my blood. I ran into Bebe’s room to see if they were alright. Bebe was sitting on the bed, holding Mandy and something about the way she was holding her told me she was seeing an awful lot, if not the entirety of the little girl now. Mandy was crying and Bebe was soothing her gently.
A chorus of screams ripped the air apart, making me sink down and join the joint hug, terrified. This was awful. Almost as bad as what had happened to me in the Pennington kitchen the day before. I didn’t know how much longer I could stand
this. Where could we go? What could we do to stop this? That helpless feeling was the worst.
And then all the rumble and smashing noise stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
We sat for a moment and waited, holding our breath. Nothing. It was as though it had never happened.
“Oh! Celinda,” I remembered, jumping up and running to the spare bedroom. I threw open the door. Celinda was gone, and on the bed was a note. “Had to go—Thanks! C.”
I did a quick look under the bed. She’d taken the carryall with her. Turning on a dime I ran outside and headed for the barn. Her car was still there. Someone must have come for her.
I walked slowly back toward the house and suddenly, a young man stood in front of me.
“Dante!”
He shimmered eerily in the moonlight as some ghosts do, handsome as ever. My heart soared with pleasure to see him again. I’d been wondering if I ever would.
“Did you see what just happened here?” I asked him, still quivering from the horror.
He nodded. “I made them stop,” he said softly. “But they will be back. They won’t quit until they get the little one back again.”
“Oh no, Dante. Don’t tell me that. She can’t go back there. They treated her badly and….”
“She has to go back. She has unfinished business. Some things just have to be.”
“But, Bebe has just fallen in love with her and…” I looked toward the house and then back again and he was gone. I bit my lip. This was going to be hard.
Chapter Ten
“It’s a journal, a register, a record of everything Tom saw out his front window on that street.” I showed the notebook to Bebe and she reached out to touch the name embossed on the cover, then looked inside.
“Oh my gosh! He really was nosy, wasn’t he?”
“Oh yeah. Look, there’s a map at the front and the name of everyone living in each house on the block. Then under each date, there’s a notation about everyone, coming and going.”
Bebe shook her head and stared at me. “What on earth for?”
I shrugged. “He must have been some sort of compulsive personality. Maybe he craved power, but since he couldn’t have that, he just kept records. That somehow satisfied his need to control what everyone was doing.”
Little Ghost Lost (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 5) Page 9