Murder at the Snowed Inn

by Imogen Plimp

  “Rupert, we’ll be right back!” I called toward him. “Luckily, he’s not in complete darkness all that often… Ah! Found them!” My stash of tea candles. I was glad. And I had even more candles than I’d remembered—a few boxes of white tea lights and a box of Hanukkah candles. Irreverent for a séance, perhaps. But who’s counting?

  I carried all I could while balancing my flashlight on top of candle boxes for guidance, as did Evelyn. We arrived back on the first floor in one piece (well, two pieces), where Rupert greeted us as if we had been gone for ages.

  We lighted candles and placed them all around the house—in the bathroom and kitchen and den, and in the hallway to the front door—always good to have an escape route. It actually looked quite beautiful in my house when we were finished redecorating.

  “I should keep it like this all the time,” I mused.

  Evelyn nodded. “You should. I love candles. I wish we’d never figured out electricity…”

  “Well,” I shrugged, “it has its perks.” I smiled at her, both of us aglow in soft candlelight.

  By now, it was pitch black outside. But it wasn’t even dinnertime yet. Evelyn and I settled into the kitchen, Rupert never far, where we made hot buttered rum. Actually, I made hot buttered rum—Evelyn sat at the island munching on popcorn with soy sauce, hot sauce, and nutritional yeast (sounds odd, but it’s delicious!), and sipping hot chicken soup from a mug.

  “I don’t know, Claire,” Evelyn said out of nowhere while fingering a pile of melted candle wax.

  “What don’t you know?”

  “Maybe you’re right—maybe Nina did do it. Maybe she offed them both.”

  “And then you think she fled?”

  Evelyn shrugged. “I guess so. Makes sense. I mean, where else could she possibly be?” She was fashioning what looked like a snowman out of wax drippings.

  I nodded, slowly stirring a nip of dark rum into my sweet buttery concoction. I poured the now-finished potion into two tea cups and carried them over to the island, then took a seat across from Evelyn with a sigh.

  “Maybe your ouija board will give us some answers,” I said, sipping gingerly. This batch of hot buttered rum was outstandingly good—but very, very rich.

  Evelyn stared at me from across the island like I’d grown an extra set of ears. “I didn’t know you believed in that stuff! Wouldn’t have pegged you as the type.”

  “I don’t know,” I shook my head. “Who’s to say whether there are spirits or not? I can’t believe there’s nothing out there…”

  Evelyn nodded. “That’s for sure.” She stood up from her stool and sauntered over to the kitchen counter, where she added another nip of rum into her tea cup. She took a sip, “Ah! Now it’s perfect.” She smiled brightly at me—and returned to her stool.

  “Do you believe in spirits? Or do you just play ouija for fun?” I asked.

  Evelyn settled into her seat and gazed down into her cup. “I believe there are things that happen—things that are otherwise unexplained. Spooky things if you don’t believe in spirits. I believe in ghosts and saints and … presences, I guess … all that hullabaloo. But I don’t know whether they wanna talk to us or not.”

  I nodded.

  “I mean, if I was a ghost, I wouldn’t wanna stick around here, talking to broads like us.”

  I smiled. “Good point.”

  “Well, should we give ‘er a whirl?” Evelyn asked, suddenly perking up.

  “Might as well!” I said. “We aren’t getting any younger…”

  Evelyn set up her ouija board on the island and carried some candles in from the den—for extra ambiance. She also poured a glass of water and set it on the island, “just in case the spirits are thirsty,” which made me chuckle.

  “You sure they wouldn’t prefer rum?” I asked facetiously.

  She shrugged. “Probably,” she said, “but I don’t want to presume… What if one of them used to be an alcoholic? I don’t wanna offend anyone.”

  I shook my head, ever-amused.

  It’s about then that Rupert, who had been lying quietly on the floor, nestled in between my feet and the island, started whining. I rubbed his head with my slippered feet and dropped him a bit of chicken from my mug of soup—but he just kept on whining. “I’m sorry he’s been like this so often when you’re around,” I apologized to Evelyn. “He’s usually not whiney at all…”

  “Maybe he can feel something!” Evelyn suggested, even more excited by the prospect her spirits were tangible to another being.

  “So … what do I do?” I asked.

  “You put your fingers here,” she demonstrated, “and I put mine here. We ask the spirits questions—I’ll do that part—and then we wait for an answer. They’ll guide our hands, so you don’t need to do anything. Don’t try to stop the planchette from moving, but don’t push it neither.”

  “Either,” I corrected.

  “Yeah that’s what I said. Ok! So…”

  We both set ourselves up and into position, then looked at one another. Rupert whined quietly, but stayed put.

  “Is anyone here?” Evelyn asked in a sort of boomy announcer’s voice. “Anyone besides me and Claire?”

  “I think they got that part,” I whispered.

  “Shhh!”

  Nothing happened.

  “Is there anyone here who’d like to talk to us?”

  Another stagnant pause.

  “We’re really quite nice!”

  Nothing at all.

  “Ok then, Jimmy—excuse me, James…” she leaned in and whispered to me: “in case his mother is with him.”

  “Good move,” I whispered back.

  “James!” Evelyn continued. “Are you here?”

  Another pregnant pause.

  “James, if you are here, why did you die?”

  Still nothing.

  “Ok. James, do you know why you died?”

  All of a sudden, our planchette started rolling—ever so slightly. First to the left a bit, then to the right, then up toward Evelyn. It made a circle … and then a tiny figure 8 … and then it landed on the word No. I got tiny tingly goose pimples on my forearms.

  Evelyn frowned, removed her fingers from the planchette, and slumped down into her seat, her arms frustratingly crossed against her chest. “Well that’s just maddeningly unhelpful.”

  I giggled. I couldn’t help it—the snow, the candles, the board game—this was actually pretty fun!

  “Ok ok…” Evelyn powered on, sitting back up. “Leslie. If you’re here… Well, er … are you here, Leslie?”

  At my feet, Rupert whined, keeping still.

  With Evelyn’s fingers placed back onto our planchette, it began to move—a little more quickly this time, first right, then left, then down toward one of my corners … and then it settled onto the word Yes.

  “Why did you die?” Evelyn asked in a measured tone.

  Slowly, but emphatically, our planchette moved down to the collection of letters. It began to spell out a word: First M, then A, then I, then L—where it stayed put.

  “M-A-I-L. Mail?” I asked quietly, more goose pimples raising on my arms.

  Evelyn shook her head, as confused as I was. “Leslie, do you know who your killer was?”

  The planchette began to move again, as sure as ever…

  “You’re pushing!” I accused Evelyn.

  “Am not!” she insisted. “You’re pushing!”

  “Oh, come on…” I rolled my eyes at her.

  Our planchette made a few crop circles—and then landed on the word Yes.

  Evelyn gasped—and continued: “Leslie, who was your killer?”

  The planchette stayed put. It seemed to quiver a little, but it stuck to the Yes.

  Slowly, after what seemed like several minutes, it moved ardently to the left.

  H, it said.

  Then it did a little half-moon, and hovered over A.

  Then an isosceles triangle, down and back up again—to R.

  And then i
t quivered again, but it wouldn’t budge from its spot.

  “H-A-R,” I said loudly. “Who’s that? Harry? Harriet? Harlan? Harlequin?”

  “Har,” Evelyn said. “Har… Oh! As in: har, har. Oh Jeez, she’s laughing at us! That little b-word…”

  “Evelyn!”

  “Sorry Claire, but it’s true,” she retorted, aghast. “She was like that when she was alive, an’ she’s like that now, still!”

  * * *

  When our rousing game of ouija board dulled, we refilled our cups with hot buttered rum and retired to the den, reading by the fire—a novel for me, a book of word games for Evelyn. Which, of course, resulted in an amusing play-by-play: “Run. Well, that one’s easy … Is avatar a word? … How about analio? No? Didn’t think so...”

  Rupert had moved into the den as well, settling prone on the floor in front of the fire, protectively positioned in between the two of us. Occasionally he’d pop his head up, his ears back—as if listening for some boogey in the darkness. Then he’d lie back down again, unsatisfactorily. He continued to whine—and would occasionally stand up with an irritated “hrmph,” then walk over to the entrance to the cellar, whining and pawing at the door—but then he’d come right back to us and lie down again.

  At about 9:00, the power came back on—a sore disappointment to everyone but Rupert, who took its return as an opportunity to go outside and do his business. Evelyn decided to take off at about 9:30, sleepy from the rum and all the evening’s excitement.

  “You gonna be alright in here all alone?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, almost offended. “The power’s back on—also, I have Rupert!”

  She grinned knowingly. “Yeah, but a house like this feels … I dunno … different … after you’ve talked to the spirits. And Rupert’s a big ole’ scardycat.”

  “That he is,” I agreed, gazing down at him—he was lying next to the fire, looking up at the both of us with worrisome eyes.

  “Nightmare makes a better guard dog.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “So if anything spooky happens tonight, I’ll go fetch Nightmare for moral support.”

  At 10 o’clock, Evelyn had gone and I had settled back into my very favorite reading chair. I was getting to the good part of my book—the part where your heart starts racing and you want to turn the pages as quickly as possible, and maybe even skip to the end, but then you also want to savor it…

  The fire was still raging, and I had plenty of energy. But Rupert wasn’t happy. It was around then, still sitting next to the fire at my feet, that he started growling. The first time, I ignored him. But after awhile, I began to grow irritated—and then spooked.

  At around 10:20, I heard what I assumed he heard: a low rumbling, coming from the basement. And a kind of clicking noise. Metallic for sure, but I couldn’t tell what it could be. At first, I stayed put in my most comfy chair—listening but afraid to budge an inch. I was scared it might be an intruder, come in from the cellar door that wouldn’t close. And then I thought it might be worse—a ghost. An angry ghost, come for retribution for me and Evelyn’s spiritual snooping about.

  I continued to read—or to pretend to read, anyway. Clearly, I was psyching myself out because of our ouija board game, and because of my book, which was getting almost unbearably exhilarating. At about 10:45, the downstairs noise morphed into a kind of hissing, a subterranean hissing… And suddenly, I was worried (but simultaneously relieved) I had another burst pipe on my hands.

  I hopped out of my seat without another thought—startling Rupert—grabbed my flashlight off the fridge door, hurked on my work boots, turned on every single light in the house (a sensible precaution in case it really was a ghost), and pounded down the basement stairs as loudly as possible (to ward off said potential spirits). True to form, Rupert camped out at the top of the stairs, whining and howling, but uninterested in joining me in spite of the possibility of my being in imminent danger.

  Although I had turned on every light in the basement, it was very dark. And very gloomy. A cellar is a cellar—nothing you can do about that. But it looked more a dungeon through my post-ouija rum-fueled late-evening haze. I swept the light of my flashlight all around, a watch tower surrounded by swamps crawling with escaped convicts, pausing here and there on items that seemed to be moving: a lamp that looked at first like a tall, dark man; a torn oil panting of an old woman. That painting had been propped up against the washing machine in the basement when I had moved in—and I could swear its haughty subject was watching me, moving her eyeballs along with my sweeping flashlight in disapproving interest.

  With merciful swiftness, I spotted the culprit: my hot water heater. Steam was rising from its decrepit top with an impressive amount of pressure. And the resulting cooling water was leaking into a puddle on the bottom of the stack. My heart felt like it had pressed the button to a release valve—relaxing, but remaining alert, just in case.

  “Gosh darnit! No matter what I do to this house, there’s something else… Always something else…” I walked carefully over to the hot water heater to investigate—Rupert from above growing quiet in response to the sound of my voice.

  I continued mumbling to myself to keep the fear at bay—“Another bundle of money down the garbage disposal… May as well be living in the Money Pit.”

  I searched around the hot water heater, my flashlight drawn and on-the-ready, thinking somehow I could solve a problem I knew nothing about.

  But while circling the heater, I noticed a faint light on the other side of the corridor, opposite the cellar door, eeking out from my basement freezer—seemingly sweltering in the water heater’s gathering steam. It looked beautiful—and eerie—haloed in a golden hue.

  I kept the flashlight on, but placed it gently down onto the concrete floor, right next to the hot water heater. Then I ever-so-slowly inched toward the freezer across the room. Quietly, cautiously. As if the freezer were a caged animal. As if I didn’t want to spook it.

  When I arrived at my target, I creaked the freezer door open—just a smidge, then another … until a box of frozen puff pastries jumped out at me, sending my heart up into the stratosphere like a rocket ship.

  “Oh my God! You scared me, little guy!” I said to the puff pastries.

  I knelt down to pick up the box, in the process opening up the freezer door all the way. As I stood, I saw it—not registering it at first, but seeing it just the same: a frozen foot. Connected to a frozen leg. And above a mountain of pork shoulder and bacon and whole organic chickens, the unmistakable, perfectly frozen face of one Ms. Nina Delacroix.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I don’t remember whether I screamed or not. I must not have, because Rupert never came down into the basement. I don’t blame him, though—if I had known there was a body in my freezer, I wouldn’t have gone down there, either.

  I was sitting on my favorite chair in the den, watching the fire die down to embers as a horde of policemen searched my home, when Evelyn barged through my front door. I heard her through my shocked haze. “Allan, it’s me! Evelyn! … I know it’s a crime scene, but I need to make sure my friend is ok! … I don’t care what the rules are! … Yeah well, I used to babysit you—now move your skinny rear end out of my way or I will call your mother!” And then she was upon me—petting Rupert at my feet, crouched down next to my chair, holding my hand and asking me if I was alright.

  “Well—I’m … kind of dazed!” I told her.

  “I’ll bet! It was Nina down there?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Yes,” I didn’t move my eyes from the fireplace. “How’d you know?”

  “Heard the cops talking about it on the porch. I came as fast as I could, as soon as I heard the sirens. I’m just so glad you’re okay! I thought maybe … maybe…”

  “Maybe it could have been me in the freezer?” I finished her sentence monotonously.

  “Yes.” She paused. “But it’s not you! You’re here! You’re going to be alright,” she rubbed my hand
vigorously, as if trying to resuscitate me from having fallen into an icy lake.

  “Is Arnie here?” she asked, “Sheriff Sellers?”

  I shook my head. “He’s on another call. They said he’s on his way, but he won’t be up the mountain for a little while.” Finally, I turned to face Evelyn. “Why was she in my freezer?” I asked.

  Evelyn looked up at me, her brows knitted with concern. “I was just gonna ask you the same thing. Claire, I think you’re…”

  “…being framed,” I finished for her, returning my gaze to the fire.

  She nodded.

  “But, why?”

  Evelyn peeled herself up off the floor and settled into the couch right next to me. “I don’t know… Maybe because you’ve been out, asking people questions?”

  “Ah. Right, of course,” I said. “I’ve been snooping around. Sticking my nose in other people’s business. So this is what I get.”

  “Well, there’s good news!” She tried to sound cheerful.

  “What could that possibly be, Evelyn? There’s a body in my freezer! I didn’t like the person that body used to be much when she was alive, but I’m also not thrilled she’s dead!”

  “I know, I know,” she spoke in soothing tones. “If you are being framed, and if it is because you’ve been asking too many questions, well then … that means the killer is probably someone you’ve already talked to about the case.”

  I sat silently.

  “And!...” she added more excitedly, “it must mean you’re getting close!”

  I looked over at her, quickly growing annoyed. “I don’t think anyone I’ve talked to about this could possibly be the killer.”

  Evelyn sighed. “I don’t know, Claire. All I know is this is starting to get really spooky.”

  “I know,” I nodded.

  Evelyn was trying to piece it together. “You think she was down there while we were up here, playing ouija and drinking… Oh God! You think she was down there when we went down there to find candles?”

  I shook my head, back to staring blankly into the fire. “I don’t know.”