“Oh…he’s still a little stinker.”
“Arf!”
“Miss Banfield…” A tall athletic African American man came around the van and spoke to Cammy just as we were about to walk away. “…it was very pleasant sharing the trip with you. I hope you didn’t get a sore neck turning to talk with me all the way up here.”
“Oh, it was my pleasure. It made the time fly by.”
I looked at the man and thought I recognized him. “Hector? What are you doing back up here?”
He flashed a big broad grin and extended his hand. “You must be Jessie Delacroix. Hector’s my twin brother. I’m Zach – Zach Fontaine. Maybe you can tell me how to find Kyle Carnigan.”
Hector was the bodyguard of a big-time designer who met an untimely end while he was staying at the Inn.
“Of course, Zach. Kyle should be dropping his wife off for work here in a little while. Why don’t you grab a booth in the Tea Room, and I’ll text Lexi to make sure that Kyle comes in for lunch and meets with you. I’ll get Cammy Jo settled, and maybe we’ll see you a little later.”
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Chapter Five
It didn’t take long for the town and the Inn to turn into a zoo. The usual crush of weekend antique shoppers was augmented by dozens of treasure hunters, reporters from far and wide, and teams of deputies and investigators looking for lunch.
“It looks like these people take their treasure hunting seriously,” I said to Cammy as we were going over to the Nirvana from the carriage house.
“I guess so!” She stepped over the hitch between an SUV and a flatbed trailer filled with odd-looking equipment. “Good thing you talked me into shorts and sneakers instead of a skirt and heels, Jess.”
The horseshoe drive in front of the Inn was filled with vehicles of all kinds and dozens of people that seemed to be unloading tons of suitcases and equipment. Lionel had the driveway between my house and the Inn lined up with trailers holding small airboats and all-terrain vehicles extending almost all the way back to the pine trees. A couple of the boats were loaded up with expensive ground X-ray and sonar equipment for finding treasure under the ground and the water. I used to see a lot of it around here when I was a kid.
The porch around the Inn was filled to the gills, and Kyle and Zach were setting up extra tables in the courtyard to handle the madness.
“It looks like business is good, Jessie!”
It was more frightening than exciting to see this many people at the Inn and Tea Room. “Maybe a little too good, Cammy. I hope we handle it all.”
I was expecting to find a lot of tension and chaos in the Tea Room, but inside things were remarkably calm. Everyone was seemed to be happy and relaxed with gentle laughter in the air. Glenn Miller’s String of Pearls, a 40s mid-tempo jam that Granny used to love, was playing on the overhead speakers. The mood and pace in the Nirvana felt more like something you would expect at beach resort in the evening. To my surprise, Anika came walking out of the kitchen with a tray of food.
“Good afternoon, Jessie. Lexi has a table saved for you out in the corner of the courtyard!”
What the…
I had never seen Anika outside of the antique pawnshop on the other side of the lobby before. She’s part of Gus…one of the Gusses. Um…Gus is the old silent guy who runs the antique pawnshop across the lobby from the Tea Room, and he somehow morphs into Anika, this short round lady, when he needs to talk to people and sometimes into Moondance, the black cat, when he wants to eavesdrop or just run around. I’ve never seen Eddy, but he’s their biker alter-persona when they have to go somewhere. I think I’m the only one who knows about Gus’s shape-shifting abilities.
“Anika, what are you doing here? How…?”
She held up one finger… “Just a sec, hon!” …and delivered the hot food to a table.
I stood in the opening in the counter by the kitchen doors with Cammy next to me, surveying her new surroundings. Anika came back with her huge, bubbly smile. “Now, what can I do for ya?”
I was almost speechless, not knowing which of my hundred questions to ask first.
“I gotcha.” No surprise…she knew what I was thinking. “Lassabb.” She waved her fingers in front of her. The world around us seemed to come to a stop, and the chatter in the room turned to a low rumbling roar.
I looked at her quizzically and a little afraid.
“Don’t worry, Jessie. It’s just a little time bubble for the two of us. Nobody else will know the difference.”
People were raising coffee cups to their mouths at the rate of about an inch every five seconds, and the room took on a dreamlike feel.
“”They’re not really slowed down – we’re just moving faster. Anyway, you want to know why I’m here and all that. Well, I could see how busy it was. Your girls were overwhelmed, and the customers were cranky. So I came over to help! I did a nyugalom wave to bring some patience and tranquility to everyone, and then I sent Ashley out to take care of the porch and Lexi to the courtyard, so I took over the dining room. Granny and Kat are helping out in the kitchen.”
I looked through the pass through window and saw Granny holding a mixing bowl with one arm and slowly stirring something – which would look like a floating bowl and an enchanted spoon moving on its own to everyone else!
Anika smiled. “Now everything is running like clockwork! Gyorsabb.”
Time went back to normal as she turned and walked into the kitchen. I was right behind her.
“Oh, Jessie…Gus wants to talk to you sometime soon when you have a half-hour to yourself.” She loaded her tray with plates of finger sandwiches from Carlo’s table and headed back out to the dining room.
Carlo was humming and assembling sandwiches faster than I’d ever seen him move before. He turned to me with a huge smile. “Isn’t the world a beautiful place, Jessie?”
“Ummmm…sure.” This was very odd, but I had to get to Granny right away.
“Granny – not where people can see you!”
I turned and looked through the pass-through to see a boy at a table with his eyes wide and his jaw hanging open. I took the bowl and moved it to a work table next to Ginny, who was oblivious to everything, whistling to the tune in her earbuds and cranking out lunch orders for hot food.
“Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking,” Granny said. “I just felt so peaceful all of a sudden and wanted to pitch in and help Carlo. Your mother is in the corner in back cutting fruit, and I’m stirring it into the whipped cream to make the fruit salad.”
“Well, you’re not allowed to participate in human activites, Gran. I don’t know what the ghost rules are, but those are my rules.”
“Oh, so you’re saying I’m not human? Well, let me tell you something, young lady…”
“Granny, I don’t have time for this now. Please, just…”
“Jessie?” Cammy poked her head through the kitchen doors looking for me. Oh, crap. I forgot all about her. I hope she didn’t hear me talking to Granny. I sent a telepathic message to Granny: “Don’t stir!”
“Hi, Cammy! Sorry…I just ran in to see how things were going back here.” I rattled on a little nervously, not knowing what she had seen. “That’s Ginny, and this is Carlo. You’ll get to know them when it’s not so busy. Grab a sandwich or two.” I pointed her towards the asparagus rollups and the bacon-chicken-bleu cheese fingers. She didn’t show any sign of thinking I was crazy, so that was a good thing.
We finally made our way out through the lobby and solarium to the courtyard in back. Arthur had been frolicking in the big grassy yard between the courtyard and the pine forest and came to join us at our table. Kyle and Zach were already there when Cammy Jo and I joined them.
“I like it,” Zach said to Cammy with a smile as we approached the table. His eyes twinkled a little as he watched her sit. “A woman who can pull off the causal girl look and still be a sophisticated business lady too is aces in my book.�
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Do I sense some sparks here? Cammy was obviously flattered, but shrugged it off with a confident “of course I’m spectacular” glance. It must be nice to have that kind of self-assurance in your beauty and femininity.
“Ladies,” Kyle said, “meet my new Deputy in Charge of Community Security.”
“Congratulations, Zach!” I knew that Kyle was looking for a deputy, but I was a little surprised that things moved along so quickly. “Welcome to our serene little town where nothing ever happens…”
“…except for maybe one high-profile murder case a month,” Zach countered with a smile. “Thanks.”
“Zach was a Seal like his brother, Hector, and agreed to help us out for a year or two as he transitions back to civilian life. The Sheriff’s Department already had him vetted for us, and I was just waiting to look in his eye to make the offer.” Kyle looked very pleased to have landed this behemoth of a man, who looked like he was carved from solid granite by Michelangelo. His muscular arms protruded through the short sleeves of the black T-shirt that could barely contain his massive chest. His head and face were clean-shaven.
“I’m looking to build up my résumé in private law enforcement and see where it leads me.”
“It’ll probably lead to Quantico for a man with your credentials and…” gorgeous muscles “…physical stature.” He had FBI written all over him.
“You never know, but I might just want to stay right here.”
“Well,” I warned, “It’s a nice enough town, but there’s not a lot of excitement – or single women either, for that matter.”
“I’ve had plenty of excitement, and I don’t need a lot of single women.” He looked at Cammy. “Just one is enough.”
Yikes. Fortunately, Lexi swung by.
“I’ll bring out some food and beverages for everyone, and then I’ll join you all for lunch. Katy Lyn is going to give me a break.” And she was gone.
Katy was Kyle and Lexi’s 14-year-old daughter, and a really sweet kid.
“Okay, Kyle…” I patted his shoulder. “…it’s time for you to tell us everything you know about the murders and that pirate ship.”
Kyle looked at Zach and then at me. “You know I can’t tell you any details of an on-going investigation, Jessie. He nodded his head and eyebrows toward Zach. He was trying to tell me that he didn’t want to tell me anything in front of Zach, especially since he’s brand new. Breaking protocol on Day One might not look too good.
I put on my mopey face and looked at Zach. He crossed his big wrists on the table and leaned forward. “From what my brother told me, Miss Delacroix here pretty much solved the last big case by herself and apprehended the perpetrator too. And Miss Banfield,” he sighed and nodded toward Cammy Jo, “is a licensed private detective. So you don’t have to withhold information from them on my account. We’re going to need all the help we can get. And I wouldn’t mind getting all the details straight myself.”
That seemed to be good enough for Kyle.
“Okay. Well, for starters, we’ve got three John Does at the morgue.”
“What?” I was confused. “Olivia said that they hanged her fiancé, Dr. Bandersnatch. So, at least one of them isn’t a John Doe.”
Kyle scratched his chin. “Yeah, well, that’s what we thought too – until we pulled the sacks off their heads and took a look. Sheriff Muldoon has known Bandersnatch for years, and he swore that none of the dead men were Phineas. We cut all three of them down and put them in body bags on stretchers, and then we brought Professor Vant back to ID the bodies. She identified the one from the mast in the middle as Lawrence Pettigrew, an associate of Bandersnatch from the museum. She had never seen the other two before. One was a scruffy and burly old buccaneer in an old smelly pirate costume, and the other was a young man with a bad case of rickets and scurvy.”
We all exchanged baffled looks. None of this made sense. “Those diseases are pretty rare with modern medicine aren’t they? I mean, none of this makes sense, except maybe the pirate costume on a pirate ship.”
“We’re pretty much in the dark, to be honest. It’s even more odd that Olivia didn’t even know that Pettigrew was onboard. And the ship was empty. Olivia and her kids seemed to be the only living passengers.”
“So, where’s Bandersnatch?” Cammy Jo asked.
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Just…gone.”
I took a cleansing breath and moved onto the next topic. “So, what about that pirate ship? Where did it come from?”
“Well, that’s something I can explain.” Kyle seemed pleased to move on to something he knew a little about. “It was a joint project funded by the university and the museum and spearheaded by Olivia and Phineas. Olivia had a very detailed description and blueprint of the Scoundrel of the Seas, the ship of her ancestor, Captain Gentry Olivant.”
“Ancestor?” I was shocked.
“Yes, the family dropped the first few letters and changed their name to Vant to avoid association with the notorious privateer who became a pirate.”
“I remember her telling us about Olivant being a privateer during class one day.” The privateer thing had ignited an old, dim memory. “The British government hired him and his ship as a privateer to protect their merchant ships and get back cargo that pirates had stolen. His ship was originally christened the Savior of the Seas. And then after much success looting pirate ships, he went over to the dark side himself.”
“Just like Captain Kidd,” Cammy added.
“Exactly…yes. And he changed the name from Savior to Scoundrel.” My head was spinning with thoughts. “And she was named Olivia – Olivia Vant, the name sake of Olivant – which was probably what instilled her with the desire to follow the lore of ancient pirates.”
Kyle continued his story as Lexi joined us with a tray of sandwiches and a pitcher of peach iced tea. “Some of the old stories and the journals from the museum led her to believe that Olivant’s ship had run aground somewhere near here, and she found many of the timbers that hadn’t been used for firewood or building crude houses. She recovered what she could and used them in the ship. One of the masts, the stateroom door, and some of the rail is all original equipment, along with many of the floorboards and timbers. They just finished building it a couple of weeks ago, and wanted to come down here to introduce it to the world.”
“And probably look for Olivant’s lost treasure,” Lexi added.
“That too, yes. Soooo…” Kyle inhaled deeply and shook his head slowly. “It looks like we’ve got a triple homicide and a possible kidnapping on our hands.”
Zach nodded with a faraway look in his eyes. “And very little to go on.”
I looked at Cammy, and she looked pretty baffled too. Then Arthur put his chin on my foot, “You’ve been pretty quiet there, boy. You must have worn yourself out.” I scratched his ears and smiled. These guys are never going to be able to figure this out, Arthur. They’re all stuck in the real world. It looks like we’re going to have to lead the way on this one.
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Chapter Six
The Tea Room crowd thinned out by late afternoon, with the investigators and reporters heading up to the crime scene and the treasure hunters launching a bevy of airboats out into the swamp in search of treasure. There was an army in hip boots with metal detectors and shovels trying to decipher old maps all over the area too. Kyle had made it clear to everyone that unapproved digging on public or private property and littering would be a ticket to the town’s jail cell above the Dairy Queen.
Cammy Jo and Zach were going to take a little tour of Antique Row along Carlisle Avenue, with Ginny as their tour guide, and then Zach would go to join the investigation at the crime scene. He wouldn’t be an official employee of CSI until he completed all the paperwork on Monday. This gave Arthur and me some time to see what Gus wanted to talk about.
Maddy had collapsed into a frazzled heap in her
chair behind the front desk.
“Exhausted, Madz?” I had to smile at her fatigued appearance, but my heart went out to her.
“Just getting my second wind, Jessie. The suite and three of the rooms are filled, along with a zillion requests for extra pillows, ironing boards, toothpaste, robes – you name it. Kind of a demanding lot this week. Just waiting for one more group to check in, and then probably another batch of room service requests for dinner.”
“Just tell them we have a lovely courtyard outside with table service, and the weather is great.”
“Oh, they all want to plot their top secret paths to the treasure in the privacy of their own rooms, I think.”
The front door opened, and two couples walked in with suitcases rolling behind the two men. The second man, slightly younger and bigger, also carried a violin case.
“Good afternoon, folks,” Maddy greeted them. “You must be the Vladivosch and Stoyetsky party.”
“Yes,” the first man replied in a heavy Eastern European accent.
The men were in their 50s, and the women appeared to be in their late 20s.
“We will need extra towels and shampoo for our…sisters. Their luggage was lost on the flight.”
Maddy and I exchanged a very subdued eye-roll, then I waved my farewell and went into Gus’s pawnshop. Anika had just left the Nirvana and returned to her shop a few minutes ago, and now she came rushing out of her back room behind the counter. Her face was red, and she seemed a little agitated.
“Just a sec, Jessie. I have to let Moondance out to take care of some urgent business!”
She melted away behind the counter, and Moondance went running out the door into the lobby, through the solarium, and out the back door. I was a little puzzled, but waited patiently. Moments later, Moondance returned, and Anika reappeared behind the counter.
“Whew!” She was looking much better now. “It’s nice to have a cat that can take care of ‘urgent business’ outside when all the bathrooms are full.”
Jessie Delacroix and the Sanctum of Shadows (Whispering Pines Mystery Series Book 2) Page 4