Jessie Delacroix and the Sanctum of Shadows (Whispering Pines Mystery Series Book 2)

by Constance Barker

  “How did you get here so fast, Sheriff?” Kyle asked him. “I just called your office a few minutes ago.”

  “I was already on the boat when I got the text from HQ. I heard that Carlo was serving all-you-can-eat hand-battered fish tonight at the Tea Room, so I thought I would stop by…with the head of my forensics team.”

  A beautiful green-eyed redhead stepped up next to the Sheriff. “Audrey Gastineau,” she said, extending her hand to me first and then to Kyle. Ginny turned quickly to look at the woman when she heard the name.

  “I think we met at my Inn a month or so ago,” I said. She had led the investigative team at a crime scene there.

  “Yes,” she said. “The St. George case.” She put her hand on the Sheriff’s arm. “I’ve been telling Matthew that we should come to your Tea Room sometime. I’ve heard so much about your food and Chef Pinochet.”

  I had forgotten that Carlo had a last name; it had been so long since I heard it.

  The huge man was obviously smitten by the small woman. He took off his hat. “But it looks like that might have to wait.” He shook his head and smiled. “It seems that important people have a way of getting dead around you, Miss Delacroix.”

  My jaw dropped. He wasn’t wrong, but it really wasn’t my fault. Then he winked. Okay. I can breathe again.

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  Chapter Four

  Lionel came to pick up Olivia and her children, and Maddy went back to the Inn with them to get them settled and fed. A deputy was sent to get their story about what happened, and the crime fighters stayed to secure and investigate the crime scene.

  Lexi took Ginny to the Swamp Fox, our local tavern, to try out her new look, and I went home with Arthur and crashed. It was a long sleepless night, and I was ready for the dawning of a new day when Friday morning finally arrived.

  The unfortunate events had taken a lot of the joy out of my heart, but I was still excited to see Cammy today. Cammy Jo and I were inseparable in Savannah, and since I got called back to run L’Auberge Hantée a month or two ago I’d only spoken to her three or four times.

  I was going to put her in one of the rooms in the Inn, but it seemed that pirate-mania struck with a vengeance. The Savannah TV station ran a story on Olivia Vant’s trip to Whispering Pines, speculating that she was once again in hot pursuit of pirate treasure. She had been with the crew in Madagascar a couple years ago that found some sunken treasure in the wreckage of a ship, which they say was The Adventure Galley belonging to Captain Kidd. So, she had good credibility and a great reputation when it came to pirates and treasure hunting.

  Apparently, the University is a client of my old law firm. Cammy Jo heard Olivia mention that she was going to be coming to Stony Point – across the Elvira River from us – for some non-specified business, so she told her that she knew a certain Inn owner with a great room right in the middle of pirate heaven. Olivia remembered me and knew Carlo by reputation too. So she and her new squeeze from the museum booked our luxurious suite in the former attic of the mansion, and the four rooms on the second floor got snapped up by treasure hunters right after the 6 o’clock news aired. Long story short, Cammy Jo would be staying in the carriage house with me.

  The people who bought out the old Ghost Walk company were really pushing the ghost stories as well as fueling the fire on Captain Olivant’s buried treasure. There were a lot of pirate stories around town, but Captain Olivant was the one that got talked about the most – although the swashbucklers had kind of fallen off the radar over the past few years, giving way to the ghosties and goblins and antique hunters.

  But the new Carson Yates Ghost Walk company had done its homework, and they were doing their best to revive interest in every bit of legend and lore the town had to offer. They had been doing a lot of advertising and research and got a nice featured write-up in the Savannah Sentinel following Professor Vant’s announcement that she would be coming here. Since the Inn is kind of the centerpiece of Whispering Pines and sits at the end of the main drag, the picture for the article included a nice image of the Inn with a full moon and the tall loblolly pines behind it. So, it’s good for our business too.

  Arthur let out a couple of barks. “Hold on, there, Arthur. I just have to decide what to wear.” I looked at myself in the long mirror as I walked to my closet. “Yup, still bowlegged. Oh, well.” I stopped to appraise my almost 26-year-old body. My brown hair was in pigtails, and my blue eyes weren’t quite awake enough to shimmer yet. I moved my upper arms together to give the illusion that my cleavage was overflowing my bra and made a full-lip duck face. Definitely a girl, but not a centerfold. Well…Playboy’s going out of the nudie business anyway. And D-cups means Ds on the report card, right Mom? I guess I’m just an all-around B-girl!

  My little beagle was excited to get his day started, as he is every day, and he was jumping and yipping by the door even more anxiously now. “Okay, okay!” It was a sunny and unseasonably warm morning, so I couldn’t really blame him.

  “Don’t be so impatient, Arffy Arfur! Come here, boy. What do you think? This one…” I held the green shorty jumpsuit, with a few bright orange and yellow flowers on it, in front of me on the hanger. (It looks better than it sounds.) “…or these.” I held my old but comfy Daisy Dukes above my cowboy boots on the floor by the bed with a light yellow tank top over them.

  Arthur ran to my assistance. He gave two arfs and touched the toe of my boots with his eager paw.

  “You’re right, as always, Arthur. I’ll go with the casual country girl look and let Cammy Jo be the glamorous city girl.”

  Cammy was always fashionable and professional with every blonde hair perfectly in place, hanging with a vibrant bounce just above her shoulders. She could give off a bit of a “bookish” vibe in her tailored designer suits and oversized black-rimmed glasses, but her long legs and generously displayed cleavage kept her on every guy’s radar – not to mention her irreverent and uninhibited personality. And she loved adventure and good fun just as much as I did. Well…city adventures. I never saw her without a skirt and heels in the concrete jungle of Savannah, but hopefully she’s not too girly to put up with a little mud and a few bugs here in swamp country.

  We headed across the driveway to the Inn. Arthur dashed out toward the street and let out a few barks to let the world know that he was in charge of his territory now. Then he ran back past me and behind the mansion, into the open doors to the solarium.

  Reporters and camera crews that had come in for the murders of Phineas Martin Bandersnatch and those two other poor souls were already filling the Tea Room for coffee and breakfast. I had to go through the Nirvana to check in, and then I would meet Arthur in the lobby by the backdoor of the kitchen. Maybe there would be some leftover meat and bones in the walk-in cooler for his morning breakfast.

  The Tea Room was already bustling and the tongues were wagging, with the morning coffee drinkers and early arrivals waiting for the antique shops to open in an hour or so. Of course, now there were also treasure hunters, pirate aficionados, and law enforcement people as well as the reporters and other media people.

  As soon as I stepped foot into the dining area, above the din of murder gossip I could hear the familiar bickering coming from the kitchen. The regulars paid no attention, but the tourists were stretching their necks to see through the pass-through window behind the counter next to the swinging kitchen doors. Carlo was in early today to get ready for the weekend rush of tourists and antiquarians looking for a rare find in one of the town’s many shops.

  “I don’t care if you just sliced up a cucumber and threw it on some bread! This is my kitchen and my reputation now, you crazy old woman!” Carlo continued scoring the sides of a whole cucumber with the tip of the peeler and then sliced it thin on the mandolin with the deft quickness of a magician.

  I saw Granny disappear into the ceiling and then dive head-first down toward Carlo’s head. She stood upside down on the
ceiling, banging her fists on his white beret. “You’re doing it wrong, fatso! Those slices are way too thin – you can see right through them. And then you put all these newfangled fancy-shmancy ingredients in my recipes that took me a lifetime to perfect. You’re nothing but a brain-dead, overweight excuse for a cook!”

  Carlo just kept working and hollering as he laid the thin slices into a bath of rosewater. “It’s called infusing flavors, you old bat. And I am not a cook – I am a skilled professional chef, Miss Aggie, highly trained in creating flavors that transform your simple sandwiches into masterpieces fit for a king.”

  “Yeah, the King of Crap Town, maybe, you…”

  “Granny! Carlo!” I stormed through the swinging doors and scream-whispered as loud as I could. “This is not a carnival sideshow; it’s a business. We have a lot of people from newspapers and TV out there, so let’s try not to get any bad press because of your rantings. Now act respectable – both of you!”

  Ginny was unaffected by this frequent display of culinary animosity. “Order up!” she hollered out to Ashley. “Morning, Jessie,” she said without looking at me as she set three plates in the pass-through window and went back to her flat top griddle. She was a machine, and nothing could get in the way of her getting the food out…hot, fast, and delicious.

  I patted Ginny on the back to acknowledge and return her greeting, “How was the Fox? Did you and Lexi stay long?”

  “The darn place was closed for renovation. I guess a new couple bought it and is fixing it up nice, into a proper nightclub and restaurant.”

  “Oh, that’ll be nice. It’s about time.”

  “Yeah, it was fine, though. Lexi can’t drink anyway, so we just stopped for a cone at the DQ.” A smile grew on her face. “It’s was kinda different to see guys turn their heads to look at me. That must be what it feels like to be a girl.”

  Good for her. I walked up to Carlo’s prep table, across from the dueling pair, still trading insults, but a little more quietly. I was the only one who could see Granny’s ghost, but Carlo could hear her and Ginny could “feel” her.

  “Granny, get down here right now!”

  She reluctantly obeyed as Carlo cut small circles out of the brioche bread with a cookie cutter. He spread some chive butter on two of them then cut thick “Granny slices” of the cuke, put them on the bread, and brushed them with a little more chive butter. He sprinkled them with fresh parsley flakes.

  “Perfect!” Granny said.

  “Eat,” he said to me, “and give one to Ginny.”

  She popped the whole thing into her mouth and devoured it in seconds, flipping pancakes as she chewed and swallowed. “Delicious!”

  I took a small bite, but cucumbers had never been one of my favorite things to eat. “Very nice,” I lied. I backed up to the wastebasket behind me and surreptitiously dropped the rest of the sandwich into it.

  Carlo took two more rounds of brioche, brushed on the chive butter, dealt out two of his rosewater cucumber slices on the small circles, and brushed them with the butter mixture. Then he scooped some pink paste from the food processor with a rubber spatula and put it in a piping bag.

  “Two lightly smoked salmon fillets and one pound of cream cheese,” Carlo said. “And my secret seasonings, of course.”

  “Yeah, some boogers from his nose and a few hairs from his fat behind,” Granny harrumphed.

  He squeezed a nice portion on the two cucumber sandwiches, put another thin cucumber slice on top of each, a dash of extra-virgin olive oil mixed with vinegar and herbs, a small star of the salmon cream cheese on top, and a light sprinkle of sweet basil.

  He folded his arms and nodded for me to proceed with the second half of the taste test.

  Both of Ginny’s hands were busy plating an order, so she opened her mouth and I slid the whole thing in. “Wow!”

  Ginny seemed to sense that Granny’s spirit was turning black in anger. “I mean…this one is pretty good too.”

  I took a bite of mine. The thin slice of cucumber was a whole different thing than one of those thick slabs that had me belching up that gassy flavor for the next hour or two. I looked at Granny, trying to hide my smile. I didn’t want to offend her.

  Granny seemed to read my mind and then looked at Carlo. “Well, this is really a whole different thing, and it does look like something that these modern Millennial pinecone eaters might enjoy. Just don’t go calling it a cucumber finger sandwich. And make sure you use up those bread crusts and serve them with the spinach dip, or…”

  “I will make then into croutons, Miss Aggie. Your recipe for garlic-herb croutons is the best in the world.”

  That seemed to satisfy Granny. “Now I gotta go and tell those Carlisle kids that this weekend’s guests aren’t looking for ghosts, so they’ll have to behave.”

  And just like that, she was gone through the ceiling.

  “Uh oh.” I heard some scratching and whimpering at the back door. “I forgot to feed Arthur.”

  “Don’t worry,” Carlo assured me, “there was some of yesterday’s brisket waiting for him on top of a full dish of that kibble he likes.”

  The rest of the morning zipped by. I gave Ashley a hand with the big breakfast crowd and then, after checkout time, helped Maddy get the regular rooms ready for the treasure hunters. We had a couple of housekeeping gals that came in on the weekends to help get the rooms ready too.

  “Is Lexi coming in today?”

  “Of course – it’s Friday. But, since Carlo was here early she decided to come in this afternoon and stay till closing. Kyle was out most of the night with that murder, and she wanted to get him fed after she got the kids off to school. Plus she’s three months along, you know, and mornings have been hard for her.”

  “That makes sense. If you think she’s working too much, be sure let me know, Maddy – because you know she’ll never ask me for time off.”

  “Will do, Jess, but don’t worry; Lexi’s doing fine. She’s just starting to show, and she says that makes her forget about any nausea. It’s not just morning sickness now, but there’s a real baby on the way to get excited about.”

  “I’m so happy for her and Kyle.”

  I knew Kyle had to get some sleep, but I was anxious to find out what he could tell me about those hangings…and that 300-year-old pirate ship. I’m sure he’ll come here for lunch when he gets up. And I haven’t seen Professor Vant yet this morning either.

  We finished turning over the two rooms on the south side quickly, and Maddy checked in on the progress of the housekeeping crew in the other rooms. They were just finishing up too. From the open landing above the double doors to the solarium I saw a group of guests coming in the front door.

  “Welcome to L’Auberge!” I hollered out. “Madz, you got some arrivals!”

  “No rest for the weary.” She headed down the curved grand staircase to the front desk where Lionel was already lining up their luggage.

  “Reservation for Harrigan,” the large bearded man said.

  “Harrigan, Finch, and O’Toole?” Maddy inquired.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Sounds like a law firm,” she joked.

  The man smiled. “Not by a long shot. Maybe an Irish barbershop quartet in need of a baritone,” he joked. “We were told there would be a rollaway available for our third member.”

  “There’s a trundle under the double bed that just rolls out, and the sofa can be pulled open too. The linens are already on them, Mr. Harrigan. Room number 1 right up front is all ready for you.” She handed him the key.

  I got to the bottom of the stairs and heard Arthur barking out front. I hurried out the front door to make sure my big scary doggie wasn’t frightening any of our new arrivals.

  “Arthur…”

  There was a huge white passenger van at the bottom of the steps unloading more passengers and luggage in the middle of our horseshoe driveway. The van said Uber Doober on the side. The driver was a man in his late-20s with average everything. Maybe 5�
��9” or 10” with brown hair, brown eyes, and an average build. He was carrying suitcases up the steps to the door, and the wide wrap-around porch had plenty of room to accommodate the people and their cargo. Another crew of treasure hunters was going inside to check in, and the rest of the people were slowly disembarking.

  I wonder if Cammy Jo will drive up early or wait until after work, I was thinking. Just then I saw a really nice open-toe platform wedge with straps wrapped halfway the calf emerge from the passenger’s door in the front seat and touch the pavement. It was attached to a shapely tanned and toned leg that looked very familiar. It was her!

  I rushed down the steps, two at a time, to give her a big hug. “Cammy Jo! You made it!”

  “By the skin of my teeth,” she said as she gave me a bear hug and actually lifted me off my feet for a second. “There was a while there when we turned onto that narrow highway along the Elvira that I thought we might get eaten by alligators before we got here. You are looking so gorgeous, Jessie. This small town living must agree with you.”

  “And you are still the best liar around, Cammy Jo – probably from working around those lawyers all the time. And, yeah, I really do like being back home. You’re staying with me in the carriage house,” I said pointing around the corner of the Nirvana. “I’ll have Lionel take your bags.”

  “No need.” She reached inside the open sliding door on the side of the van and pulled a carry-on sized suitcase out from under the front seat.

  “You travel light for a high-maintenance girl with high-fashion taste.”

  “Space bags,” she whispered. “They really do make a mountain into a mole hill. I hope you’ve got an iron.”

  I chuckled. “Cam, this is an Inn. We have irons and wrinkle steamers coming out of our ears.”

  “Is this fearsome fellow your body guard?” She had given Arthur to me as a pup and squatted down to give him a friendly greeting. He accepted it after just one short growl. He must have recognized her scent. “I haven’t seen him since he was just a little stinker.”