by K. J. Emrick
“Kyle,” she said, “I think I know what happened here, and I don’t think this was a suicide.”
“Well, it would help if Algernon’s ghost was here,” Kyle pointed out. “I swear, some people have no consideration in life or in death. Guy was a jerk no matter which side of that window he was standing on.”
Just as Kyle finished saying that Miranda saw a shimmering swirl of blue taking shape near the bed. Inside, the ghost of Algernon Keaton materialized. His eyes were wide and he was looking all around him. He caught sight of Miranda and his eyes narrowed.
“Well… speak of the devil…” Kyle quipped with a grin.
“What are you doing in my room? Get out! Get out I say!” He came speeding across the room and got right into Miranda’s face. She felt the cold all around her and shivered involuntarily.
“Take it easy buddy,” Kyle said and Algernon’s head snapped around to look at him.
“Who the hell are you? And what are you doing in my room? Get out before I call the cops.” Algernon puffed his ghostly chest out in an attempt to intimidate Kyle.
“Back off a bit and we’ll explain.” Kyle said quietly, trying to defuse the situation.
In that moment Miranda could see by the look in Algernon’s eyes that he finally registered something was wrong. “Why do I feel so strange?” He said much more quietly as he backed off. “I feel so weird.” He held his hands out in front of him and gasped. “What is wrong with my hands…” He looked down. “and my body?”
Kyle stood in front of him and put a ghostly hand on his shoulder. “No easy way to say this so I’m just going to say it… You’re dead.”
Algernon just stood there for the longest moment staring at Kyle like he’d gone mad. Shaking his head, he said, “Dead? Don’t be an idiot. I can’t be dead. I can see you… and,” pointing at Miranda, “I can see her… if I was dead I wouldn’t be able to see either of you because I wouldn’t be here.”
Kyle smiled. “A common misconception among humans. But believe me you are most certainly dead.”
Algernon just shook his head and said, “No, no, no, no. Why now. Things were just going to come together for me and now… look at me.” More head shaking.
“One question…” Miranda said interrupting Algernon’s tirade. “Do you remember who killed you? Or anything at all?”
Algernon just stared at her for a few moments. “Nothing. There’s absolutely nothing. I can’t remember a thing. Why am I like this? It’s just all so fuzzy. I can’t make any sense of anything.”
“Darn. It would have been helpful if you could have remembered but it isn’t unusual that you don’t.” Miranda explained to him.
“But what do I do now? Where do I go? What’s going to become of me?”
“I’m sorry but we just don’t have time right now for you to deal with your unexpected death Algernon. We have a killer to catch.” Algernon started at her blankly and Miranda winced a little at how harsh she had sounded. Even in death Algernon rubbed her the wrong way it seemed. With a sigh, she turned to Kyle. “So now what?”
Kyle shrugged. “So with Algernon dead who does that leave us for suspects? Morgan Dale, right?”
“Come on,” was Miranda’s answer. “We have to go catch up to Jack. There’s a few pieces I think he’s missing.”
Chapter 7
With everyone gathered in the dining room again, all seated, Jack began to pace the carpet just in front of them. Miranda liked the way he did this. It was like he was preparing himself to reveal a secret the way a stage magician would. The audience was assembled. On with the show.
“Firstly, I’d like to thank you all for your patience during this investigation and to tell you that I am very sorry that the killer had the opportunity to strike again whilst we were here. Personally, I am now well aware who has committed these crimes. The killer will be brought to justice.” He turned a smile to Miranda. “Should we start from the beginning?”
She was prepared for his question. “Firstly, I think we all rather suspected Morgan Dale, didn’t we?”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t do it,” Morgan said, desperately wringing his hands.
“The circumstances of Lea Maroney’s death seemed to suggest a reaction to some kind of allergen,” Miranda went on, completely ignoring Morgan’s interjection. “As part of the investigation, certain evidence was found in the kitchen. Whoever put it there clearly thought they were being very clever in implicating Morgan. A note easily found on top of the trash suggested that Morgan shouldn’t use peanuts in any part of the menu while Lea was here. Of course, with Lea Maroney being such a regular visitor to this house, Morgan Dale would have had such instructions long ago if she was, indeed, really allergic to anything. Someone wanted to make you look guilty.”
“Are you sure?” Sapphire asked. “I mean, if the evidence was there…?”
But Miranda shook her head. “Evidence in a crime of this sort is very rarely ever that easy to find. I was practically stumbling over it. No, this was planted, plain and simple.”
“I’m sorry I ran,” Morgan said miserably. “I was just so scared after Algernon forced me into that room. I was sure blame would come down on me somehow. I’ve a bit of a criminal record, you see.”
“We know,” Jack said. “We checked.”
Morgan swallowed, and decided being quiet would be the smarter move now.
Miranda nodded to him before continuing. “While it’s true Morgan might have had a motive, after hitting on Lea and being rebuffed so often, there’s no motive for him to kill Algernon.”
The assembly gasped, no one louder than Jonah Keaton. Algernon was his son, after all. Algernon’s ghost was quietly hovering in a corner of the room. He looked bewildered and Miranda almost felt sorry for him.
“Yes,” Jack confirmed, “we know that Algernon’s death was murder, not suicide. We also know the two murders are linked. We’ll get to that in a moment. Right now, I’d like to talk about you, Fiona.”
Fiona Remington’s head snapped around at that. “Me? Whatever for?”
“There was apparently some little argument between the two of you. I believe you were both vying for Jonah’s affections?”
She laughed softly, but without humor. “No, Detective. Or at least, there was nothing of the sort from me. I knew very well that Lea and Jonah were in a relationship. Lea saw me as a threat and kept trying to outdo me. It was a fight I was all too happy to let her win. I told her that I wasn’t at all interested in an old man like Jonah and that she could keep her sugar daddy if the money meant so much to her. I have my own money. I don’t need Jonah’s, and I had no designs on him.”
“Exactly,” Jack agreed. “Try as we might, we can’t connect you to Lea’s murder. However, you certainly had a motive for killing Algernon. He was continually harassing you, wasn’t he? Trying to get you to change his father’s will in his favor?”
“Well, certainly,” she admitted with an embarrassed glance at Jonah. “I have no reason to hide that fact now. I never would have done it though. My loyalties lie with Jonah.”
“Which brings us to you,” Miranda said, turning to look down at Jonah in his electric wheelchair.
“Um, excuse me,” Fiona interrupted. “Didn’t you forget someone? What about Lea’s supposed friend, Sapphire?”
“Nonsense, woman!” Kyle blurted out. Forgotten over to the side of the gathering until now. he couldn’t keep his mouth shut when he heard Fiona’s question. “You might as well accuse me of committing murder! Sapphire would never do such a thing.”
It warmed Miranda’s heart to see how Kyle rushed to Sapphire’s defense. No matter how much he might protest, she knew he liked their friend.
“I would never hurt her!” Sapphire protested. “Never in a million years! Lea and I were the best of friends.”
“We know, Sapphire,” Miranda assured her. “No one is suspecting you. There are other persons in this home who aren’t so circumspect, however. Isn’t that right, Jonah?�
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The patriarch of this overstated home buzzed forward in his wheelchair.
“Don’t be absurd,” he muttered. “I had no time to poison Lea’s soup, and I surely had no reason to kill my own son!”
“Well,” Miranda said, wishing the trip here could have gone differently. “You sent both Morgan and Fiona to the front door to meet me. I think that was plenty long enough for you to make your way to the kitchen and set things up. Poor Morgan never knew what was coming, did he?”
He blustered at that for a moment, his hands gesturing wildly. “And why would I have killed her? After all, you claim that she and I were in a relationship.”
“You were,” Fiona insisted. “Don’t deny it now!”
“It’s not an unfounded claim,” Miranda agreed, holding Lea’s cell phone out so that Jonah might inspect the photo. “And I think I have a fairly good idea why it was you who killed her. And then, of course, there’s Algernon. Your own son, as you say.”
“Precisely, why would I kill my own son?” Algernon floated nearer to his father and leaned in close to his face. Jonah shivered as if he could feel his son there next to him.
“What did you do Father!” Algernon screamed and Jonah recoiled from his icy breath. Jonah looked all about, confusion creasing his face.
Miranda continued. “Because he knew what you’d done. He knew you’d killed Lea Maroney and he was going to blackmail you. Trying to seduce your lawyer Fiona into conning the money out of you wasn’t working, so he was going to find another way to get what he was due. And that way, Jonah, was blackmail.”
His cheeks flushed, and a hard light came into his eyes. At the same time, his hands began to shake. “And just how do you suppose a wheelchair-bound old man like me managed to push a fit and healthy thirty-year-old like Algernon off a balcony?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? You shoved him.”
“Do you really think I am strong enough to do that?” Jonah looked at her with wide eyes.
“Stationary, no. But with that wheelchair of yours you could get a running start so to speak and then shove him through the railing down onto the rocks in the garden below.” She let that sink in to the room around them. “You went up in the elevator and came down the same way. Of course, you would still have to get around several police officers but this is your house. You know all the secret passages, am I right? It was Morgan’s good luck to stumble onto one in that closet and make his escape, but I’m betting you have the entire layout of passages mapped in your brain.”
“Miranda is right,” Jack said into the ensuing silence. “Metallic residue was found in the scratches on the dresser in your son’s room. I’m betting if we look under that blanket of yours, we’ll see some fresh scratches on the side of your chair.”
Miranda couldn’t work up any sympathy for the man, wheelchair or not. What he had done was despicable. “You killed Lea Maroney, Jonah, and when your son discovered it and threatened to tell the police if you did not provide the inheritance he wanted, you killed him also.”
“I didn’t mean to kill him.” Jonah sighed and seemed to sag in his wheelchair, suddenly resigned in the face of overwhelming evidence. “Algernon had asked to see me in his room. He told me, again, that he wanted to be the sole heir to my estate, greedy little brat.” Jonah sighed. “The argument got heated and he went out onto the balcony, I guess to cool down. And that would have been fine but then he gave me an ultimatum. He said he knew what I’d done. He knew about Lea and if I didn’t give him what he wanted he would go to the cops.” Jonah bowed his head and fell silent.
A few moments passed before Jack asked, “And then what?”
Jonah lifted his head and with a deep breath continued his story, “I was more angry than I can ever remember being and rage must have blinded me because the next thing I knew he was gone.” Jonah sagged further into his chair as his head dropped to his chest. He looked like a broken man.
Algernon floated backwards and forwards in front of Jonah. “Why Father? Why? You’ve robbed me of my life. How could you?” He was very agitated. He was fading in and out. Suddenly he stopped and seemed to be looking off into the distance. Kyle noticed what was happening and went to him, whispering something and pointing. Algernon nodded his head and started to move toward whatever it was he could see. Then he was gone. He’d passed over to the spirit world.
“And Lea Maroney? What was her crime?” Jack was asking Jonah, in an attempt to antagonize the man into giving a full confession.
“Lea? The poor woman was absolutely beside herself with anxiety and depression. She was not the happiest of people in the first place, but she managed to find herself in the most dreadful trouble at work. She had been misreporting some of her investments and had taken a little money off the top. Again. She worked for me and eventually confessed to me what she’d done. That was my money she took. I was understandably angry. I will not tolerate theft. Once started she wouldn’t have been able to stop. It’s like a disease. You could say I was doing her a favor. Then there was that whole thing with Morgan. I knew it was only a matter of time before she left an aging man like myself for someone younger and stronger.”
“I’ve heard enough,” Jack said. “Jonah Keaton. You are under arrest for murder.”
“Just one more thing, Jonah,” Miranda said as the uniformed officers got ready to wheel him away.
“Oh? What’s that, Miss Wylder?”
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to write your autobiography after all.”
After a moment of stunned silence, Jonah burst out laughing. “That’s a pity, Miss Wylder. I think you would have been brilliant.”
As the officers took Jonah away, Miranda went over to where Sapphire was sitting and quietly crying. Kyle came with her. He kept uncharacteristically quiet as Miranda laid a hand on her friend’s shoulder.
“Thank you,” Sapphire said. “You and Jack both. Kyle too, I suppose? Yes, of course he was involved in this. Thank you for finding out what happened to my friend.”
Jack had already come back into the room again, after directing the officers in how to take care of Jonah. “I agree, Sapphire. Miranda is kind of clever, isn’t she? I’ve got to say, I’m getting more and more impressed with your detective abilities. There’s just one question that I have.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Who is Kyle?”
Miranda cringed, because she hadn’t meant for Jack to hear that part of their conversation. It would lead to the whole conversation about her being able to see ghosts and of course there was the whole having a ghost attached to her as well that they would have to deal with. Were they ready for that?
Kyle looked at her, with a very patient expression. “I think we can trust him. It’s time you shared our secret with a few others, don’t you think?”
Being dead had certainly made her friend smarter. He was right of course. If she was going to ever be able to have a meaningful relationship with Jack she was going to have to tell him everything about her. Not to mention, he kept alluding to a secret he himself was hiding.
“Tell you what,” Miranda said to Jack. “Why don’t you and I have dinner tonight, and I’ll trade you secret for secret. You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”
He smiled at her subtle innuendo, and she thought that was a pretty good start.
“I’d like that,” he said. “It might have to be tomorrow though? I have a feeling I’ll be a bit busy for the rest of the day. I have another double homicide to wrap up.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said sarcastically. “The homicide rate has, what, gone up a hundred percent?”
“Two hundred,” he teased, “but who’s counting? Maybe you’re not the reason for it. Maybe you’re just in the right place at the right time. Either way, our dinner will have to wait until tomorrow, okay?”
She slipped a kiss on his cheek. “That sounds perfect.”
-End-
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About the Authors
K.J. Emrick
Kathrine Emrick writing as K.J. Emrick is the author of the popular Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery series and the Pine Lake Inn Cozy Mystery series.
Strongly influenced by authors like James Patterson, Dick Francis, and Nora Roberts, Kathrine Emrick dreamed of being an author for the majority of her life.
She never quite gave up on the idea of being a published author and at the age of 51, thanks to Amazon and their Kindle platform, she finally realized her dream. Her maturity allows her to bring a variety of experiences and observations to her writing.