The Mystery Sisters series Box Set

by Karen Musser Nortman

Lil looked at Ren and Rival. “What are you guys trying to do to your grandma?”

  They giggled and hid behind their dad.

  “So what else do you have to show us in this room?” Max asked sternly, but then grinned at the kids.

  Terry wielded his remote again, and the lights dimmed while a line of jack o’lanterns with malicious grins appeared along the far wall. Discordant music came out of overhead speakers and some kind of glowing projectiles flew across the room in front of them.

  Max and Lil jumped back toward the doorway. “What is that?” Lil yelled.

  Terry softened the music. “Tennis balls with glow-in-the dark paint. One of those machines that pitches them for dogs.”

  “Good thing Rosie isn’t here,” Max said.

  Terry turned the lights back up and the music off. The tennis balls stopped hurtling but continued to bounce around the room. Ren and Rival rushed to pick them up and return them to the ball launcher.

  “Had enough, ladies?” Terry asked. “The big opening is tomorrow and there’ll be a lot more to see then.”

  “It’s really great, Terry,” Lil said. “It should be a huge success. Do you need any more volunteers?”

  He looked surprised. “Sure! You want to do that?”

  “I’d love to,” Lil said.

  Max nodded. “Me too. Sounds like fun.”

  “Great! Maybe we’ll start you out taking tickets and filling in, but Monday we have a bus tour coming through. One of those fall leaf tours. Some of our volunteers are not retirees and have to be back at work then. We could use more help.”

  Melody motioned to the kids. “Did you get everything picked up?”

  “Yes!” they chorused, accompanied by a couple of fist bumps.

  They were so loud going down the wooden steps that Terry called “Quiet down! You’ll wake the dead.”

  That got them giggling, and they tiptoed the rest of the way with exaggerated steps. When they got to the entrance hall, Terry said, “I’ll grab that soup tureen and we’ll find something else tomorrow.”

  Maxine grabbed his arm and smiled at him. “Forget it, Terry. And that I snapped at you about it. I apologize. This is probably the best use it could get.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  On the return home in Terry’s SUV, the kids peppered Max and Lil with questions about their favorite parts of the haunted house and where they were most scared. Their excitement carried through supper and all the way to bed.

  Chapter Three

  Max

  The next morning, Maxine woke from a pleasant night’s sleep. She enjoyed a hot shower and dressed for the day. The sun began to make streaks across the back lawn.

  The first order of the day was to take Rosie out for her morning walk. The sidewalk followed the winding street down to a bridge over a rocky creek. Max let Rosie off her leash and stood on the bridge leaning over the stone railing to watch the dog frolic in the water. After a few minutes, she called the dog, and they continued around the neighborhood. The gracious lawns, old trees decked with fall color, and the crisp blue sky combined to give her a feeling of complete peace. Back at the house, she dried Rosie off with an old towel that she kept in her car and led her back through the house. Melody told her the night before that the coffee was on a timer and the newspaper would be at the front door before dawn. She found the newspaper under a bush and helped herself to the coffee.

  Soon she was ensconced on a chaise lounge on the ‘scream’ porch with her coffee and the paper, watching the early birds at the feeder outside. Rosie appeared exhausted by her swim and didn’t even feign interest in the wildlife.

  Max had to admit that Terry and Melody had picked a great spot for a house. The back yard was surrounded by trees and shrubs, dressed in their fall colors. Behind them, rounded hills displayed more color.

  Burnsville was nestled in the hills of western Pennsylvania—one of those villages being revitalized by attracting day tourists to antique shops, boutiques, small museums, and specialty cafes. The haunted house should fit right in with that clientele. Max looked forward to helping with the project.

  She had been worried that this visit would be on the dull side. She and Lil traveled together several times a year, and of course Lil wanted to visit her son and family. Max thought the entire time would be spent sitting around while Terry and Melody droned on about their children’s clever sayings and accomplishments.

  Not only was that not the case, but Max was enjoying that cleverness first hand. She had never had children and didn’t normally seek out their company. Her teaching career had been spent with college students and that was young enough for her. But Ren and Rival—despite their odd-as-heck names—since she had seen them last a few years earlier, had developed such an unaffected and refreshing view of the world that she found them quite funny.

  She had dozed off when the slam of one of the French doors brought her full awake.

  “Whoops.” Ren stood there looking at her with one small hand covering her mouth. “I dint know you were asleep.”

  Max straightened her gray sweater. “I was just dozing. How are you this morning?”

  “Great!” Ren said. “After school, the haunted house is going to open.”

  “That will be exciting,” Max agreed. “I love your outfit.”

  The little girl wore a baggy turquoise sweater, a short ruffled red skirt, black and white striped leggings, and ankle high red boots. She twirled, holding her arms up. “I picked it out myself.”

  “You have excellent taste.”

  “I know,” Ren said.

  Max glanced at her watch. “What time do you have to go to school?”

  “Eight-fifteen.”

  “Do you need help with your hair?”

  Ren’s red curls stuck out on one side and were flat on the other. The little girl put one hand up to her head and grinned. “I forgot. Be right back!” She twirled again and rushed back into the house. Lil and Melody soon joined Max on the porch, and they chatted until Ren and Rival came out balancing bowls of cereal and glasses of orange juice.

  Ren noticed Max watching her progress to the table. “Mom lets us fix our own breakfast.”

  Melody looked a little embarrassed. “Terry and I feel it’s good for them to take on whatever responsibilities they can handle. Some call it free-range parenting, like it’s a bad thing.”

  “I think it’s great,” Max said.

  Terry walked in, tightening his tie. “I have to go in to work this morning. Mel thought maybe you would like a little tour of downtown?”

  “Sounds good,” Lil said. “Is there anything we can do to help get ready for the haunted house opening?”

  “No, I think we’re in pretty good shape. But we’ll give you jobs tonight.” He leaned over and kissed Melody. “I’ll see you all later.”

  After he left, Melody said to the kids, “Finish up your breakfasts. It’s about time to take you to school.”

  “Can I do that?” Max asked.

  Rival dropped his spoon in his bowl. “In your car?”

  Max nodded.

  “Cool! Can she, Mom?”

  Melody smiled. “Of course. You have to behave.”

  “We will! We will!” Ren shouted and returned to her bowl of cereal with gusto. They finished their breakfasts in record time and gathered their backpacks. Max was glad they would be strapped in with seat belts.

  Lil rode along and helped Max field the kids’ constant questions. By the time they unloaded them at the school and got back in the car, Max laughed. “I’m exhausted!”

  Lil agreed. “I need a nap. I don’t know how Melody does it.”

  Max pulled away from the school curb. “She seems to cope very well.”

  “She does.”

  They found Melody relaxing on the porch with the morning paper. She looked up, smiled, and started to get up.

  “Stay still,” Lil said. “Can I get you anything?”

  “No. I was just
enjoying the quiet. Those two can sure fill up a space with noise. But I thought you wanted to go downtown?”

  Max waved a hand. “Later. Absolutely no rush. I could do some reading myself.”

  Lil offered to help with laundry or vacuuming but Melody refused. “We all work on laundry and Terry insists on having a cleaning service once a week.” She winked at them. “He doesn’t know that I do some touching up in between, and don’t you dare tell him. I need some activity.”

  Max looked at her watch. “How about if we go downtown about 10:00?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Melody said. “Lil?”

  “Great.”

  Their first stop was the bank. Terry spotted them from inside a glass cubicle where he was standing and talking to an elderly couple. They apparently were finished as they shook hands, and he held the door for them.

  “Welcome! How about a tour of our massive financial facility?” He grinned as he swept his hand around the fairly new, although moderately-sized, room. Two granite-topped counters stood in the center with slots for pens and envelopes. A counter with three teller windows stood on one side with a row of glass-fronted offices like Terry’s on the other. A larger office with fewer windows was in the back.

  “Of course,” Lil said.

  “I’ll just wait in your office,” Melody said.

  Terry pointed at the big office in the back. “First, I want you to meet our president.” He led them back, tapped on the door and opened it a crack. “Camille? Have you got a minute? There’re some people here I would like you to meet.”

  A petite, striking woman with dark upswept hair got up and came around her desk, hand outstretched. Her broad smile was welcoming and extended to her eyes. A beautiful fall scarf artfully arranged around her neck complemented her rust colored suit.

  “This is my mother, Lillian Garrett, and my aunt, Maxine Berra. My boss, Camille Bamford.”

  The women shook hands.

  Camille Bamford said, “Terry has told me so much about you. You’re the two women who travel all over together? It sounds so great—makes me wish I had a sister.”

  Max and Lil gave each other sideways glances and grinned. “It is great—most of the time,” Lil said.

  Camille raised her eyebrows but didn’t question the comment. “I can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed working with your son. He’s turned out to be a great hire for us.”

  “Thank you. He seems to be very happy here.”

  “Should I leave?” Terry asked. “I mean, if you want to talk about me?”

  Lil looked up at him and patted him on the arm. “No, dear. We’ve pretty much exhausted that subject.”

  Camille laughed. “I see where you get your sense of humor.” She glanced at her watch. “I have a short meeting with some of the board members, and then Art’s coming to take me to lunch at the City Center. Why don’t you all join us? I’d love to hear more about your trips.”

  “That would be great,” Terry said. “I’m going to give them a tour of the rest of the bank and a couple of shops, so why don’t we meet you there?”

  “About noon?”

  “Works for us.”

  After a brief trip around the bank and meeting the rest of Terry’s co-workers, they collected Melody from Terry’s office and headed down the street toward the cafe. Max and Lil stopped in a couple of the shops along the way, so that it was almost noon by the time they reached the City Center Cafe, which faced an open plaza with a small fountain surrounded by benches.

  “City Center is an ambitious name for a spot in a town like Burnsville, but it’s very popular,” Terry said. “Would you like to eat inside or out?”

  “It’s such a beautiful day,” Max said. “I vote for outside.”

  “Me, too,” Lil said.

  They chose a table near the door, under the shade of a large, striped awning. A waiter brought menus and took their drink orders.

  “So who is Art? Camille’s husband?” Max asked.

  Terry smiled. “I think he’d like to be. No, just a significant other. Art Carnel. Camille is not only very attractive and an excellent boss, but she is the heir to the Bamford fortune—goes back to the shipping and railroad barons more than a century ago. And she’s very generous with it as well.”

  Max leaned over and said in a low voice, “Are you saying this Art is a gold digger?”

  “Later,” Terry said. “Here they come.”

  Max looked up with surprise at the approaching couple. She had expected Art to be tall and distinguished, sort of a Cary Grant type. Instead, the man who held Camille Bamford’s arm was not much taller than she, and on the rumpled side of bandbox grooming. His salt-and-pepper hair was parted on the side but other than that went its own way. His eyes crinkled as he made some comment that brought a burst of laughter from Camille.

  Terry jumped up and pulled out a chair for his boss. As she sat, he leaned past her and shook hands with Art. He then made introductions.

  Camille and Art picked up their menus and opened them briefly. Camille closed hers and smiled. “I always order the same thing. Love their Cobb salad.”

  Art waved the waiter over. “I think we’re ready to order.” Then he realized he didn’t know about the others. “Are we?” He glanced around the group.

  They all nodded.

  When the waiter left, Camille looked at Lil and Max and said, “Now. I want to hear all about these trips. Do you always drive?”

  Max picked up her spoon and twirled it. “Yes. We like to be mobile when we get to our destination.”

  Terry jumped in. “Wait until you see Aunt Max’s car. A red 1950 Studebaker—“ He looked at Max questioningly.

  “Starlight coupe,” she finished.

  Camille leaned back in her chair. “Wow! So where do you go?”

  “I live in Colorado and Lil lives in Kansas,” Max said. “We try and go West at least once a year and one Eastern trip.”

  “Last year, we came through this area on our way to Mystic, Connecticut, but Terry hadn’t moved here yet. Then in the fall, we went down to Santa Fe and over to California,” Lil added.

  They each told about several of their adventures, ending with a trip the previous summer to a family reunion in Minnesota. “And Max helped solve a murder while we were there,” Lil said.

  Art raised an eyebrow. “Really? A murder?”

  “It wasn’t just me,” Max said. “Lil helped.”

  Camille moved her arms off the table as the waiter delivered their plates. “That’s amazing. Terry, did you inherit any of this sleuthing ability?”

  Terry put his hands up. “Not me. That is, not any more than it takes to sniff out a deadbeat looking for a loan.”

  They laughed and Max said, “That’s enough about us—probably too much. Mr. Carnel, what do you do? Or are you retired?”

  “Semi-retired. I dabble in investments. I will consider myself successful if I ever get Camille to let go of some of her money.”

  Laughter again, but Max thought it was an odd thing to say, and certainly fraught with double meaning. The discussion turned to the haunted house project.

  “Lil and Max have volunteered to help out,” Melody said. “Especially for the bus tour on Monday.”

  Camille clapped her hands. “That’s wonderful! I’ve been worried that we wouldn’t have enough helpers for weekdays, and that’s when most of the bus tours come through.”

  Lil nodded. “It’s a pretty amazing project. Terry took us through yesterday and he said there’ll be more going on when it actually opens.”

  “We have a number of ‘actors’”—Camille used air quotes— “who will add more spice. Did you get to see the garden?”

  Terry shook his head. “I think they need to see that at night. We went during the afternoon.”

  “You’re right. Art will be reading ghost stories in the garden too.”

  Art gave an eerie cackle.

  “I’m convinced,” Max said.

  They finished their lunches and
walked back toward the bank where Melody had left her small SUV. It was too difficult for her to get in and out of Max’s car, but Max promised Camille she would bring it down sometime during the visit.

  When they were back in the car, Melody said, “Would you like to stop any where else, or do you want to go back and rest up for tonight?”

  Max suspected it was Melody who needed the rest, so she said, “I’m ready for a nap. It will be a busy night.”

  Chapter Four

  Lil

  A couple of hours rest in the quiet house turned out to be a good thing. When the children came home from school, their excitement over the opening of the haunted house filled the house with noise. Terry grilled some burgers for supper and Lil fixed some hash browns and green beans. Melody would be driving herself after she got in her costume, so the rest piled in Terry’s car about an hour before the opening.

  When they arrived, Terry put the kids to work cutting up slips of paper for a raffle. A drawing the last night of the haunted house would split the take between the winner and the auditorium fund. Lil and Max set up folding tables on the porch to collect admission, the job Terry had assigned them for the night.

  Art Carnel arrived shortly, dressed in a vampire costume. His hair was covered in white powder and stuck up every direction. He carried a book of scary stories for kids.

  Terry welcomed him and said, “Art, would you show Mom and Aunt Max the garden? They haven’t seen it yet.”

  Art bowed and said in a sepulchral voice, “Certainly, Ladies. Right this way.” He led them through the house to the kitchen. A back door led to a small enclosed porch. They could see amorphous shapes through the porch windows. Art flipped a couple of switches and led them outside.

  “Ohhh!” Lil said. “This is beautiful.”

  In the dark, pots of white petunias and mums along a mulch-covered path glowed in special lighting. Shrubs and trees—some bare and some with rusty leaves—were spotlit from below emphasizing their skeletal shapes. But most eye catching were the graceful and ethereal figures of women in ball gowns that glowed white and swayed in the slight breeze.