Cloudy with a Chance of Ghosts (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 4) (11 page)

“Who do you think that was who turned out the lights and knocked you down?” he asked.

“I’m pretty sure it was a man,” I told him. “But more than that, I have no clue.”

“Jagger?”

“Oh, I hope not.”

“Do you think it was the same person who killed Keri?”

I hesitated. “Don’t you?”

He shook his head. “Hard to say.” He looked at me, his gaze a bit veiled. “We’re looking to pick up Jagger again, you know.”

That gave me a chill. “Do you think he’s the one?”

He shrugged. “Too soon to tell.”

“Wow, you’re just full of meaningless phrases tonight.”

He laughed softly. “You know I can’t tell you the inner secrets of our little group. I already tell you much too much.”

“Okay. Wink two times if I’m close. Let’s say Jagger killed Keri. Why would he do it?”

He just shook his head, but I noticed he very carefully didn’t wink even once.

“No motive,” I said.
 

“That you know of,” he amended, making me frown.
 

“I can see why he might have killed Marilee,” I went on. “After she turned him in and all.”

“So you heard about that?”

I winked at him twice and he laughed out loud and pulled me close again.
 

“Hey, chew on this one,” he said softly. “What if Marilee was the one who killed Keri? Where does that leave your theory?”

That nearly sent me into orbit. “Marilee?”

He nodded. “Hey junior detective lady, you ponder that, why don’t you?” He smiled at me, teasing and looking like a man preparing to leave the premises. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

I watched him go to his car and drive off, still stunned by what he’d said. Marilee? The murderer of Keri?
 

Well, why not?

Yes, but then again, why? Did the police take her in for questioning and get a little too close to some of her secrets? Did she accuse Jagger in order to throw them off? I still couldn’t see her picking up a rock and applying it to Keri’s head. Unless she was very motivated.

Motive. That was what I still didn’t get. What was her motive?

But wait. She’d obviously had information on Keri’s attempt to profile the viler side of Carleton, hadn’t she? What was she doing with Keri’s private papers in her house? Hadn’t that ghost girl, Julie Geiger told me Marilee had taken papers from that secret hiding place in the wall? Could those papers have been something to do with Keri’s investigation?
 

It was all so confusing. I was about to go back into the house when a rustling in the hedgerow told me there was someone else out tonight. I gasped and grabbed my pajamas to my chest, but the figure that came out of the shadows was familiar.
 

“Jagger!” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Watching you and your boyfriend, it seems.” He grinned at me, looking awfully relaxed for a man who was wanted by the police. “But I had something else in mind when I first got here.”

I stiffened. After all, this man was a suspect in a murder. Should I be out here talking to him like this? Probably not.
 

“No kidding,” I said a bit breathlessly.
 

“Seriously. I was hoping to see Jill, but she’s asleep, right?”

“Right.”

“Don’t wake her.”

“Don’t worry.”

“No, really. I guess you know that Marilee accused me of murdering Keri Shorter.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Really.”

“Really.”

I looked at him nervously, but for the life of me, I couldn’t picture him as a murderer, either. It might be interesting to see who he thought did it.
 

 
“So Jagger, tell me how you see it all.”

He gave a snort. “I’m not telling you everything. Only what I think you should know.”

“Okay. Then I’m going back to bed.” I turned toward the house.
 

“No, wait. Okay. Listen, I’ll tell you what I think I know. But I’m a little shaky on some of it.”

“Just try.”

“Okay.” He sighed and leaned against the fence. “Okay. Here’s the deal. Carleton was being blackmailed.”

My eyes got wide. “You’re kidding.”

“No. He really was. He confided in me. And I was trying to help him figure out who it was so he could fight back.”

“You wanted to help Carlton?”

Jagger frowned at me. “Why does that surprise you? Sure I did. Hey, I love the guy.”

“Really?”

He looked totally earnest about it. “Yes, really. He’s done a lot for me.”

Okay, I could buy that. When you came right down to it, I was pretty sure Carlton had done a lot for most of the artists in his group. “So what was he being blackmailed about?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know the details. Something in his past, obviously. Something he didn’t want coming out.”

We were both silent for a moment, thinking that over, and I couldn’t help but wonder what Carlton had done that would be so serious he would do almost anything to keep it from the world—and did that “almost anything” include murder? Hmmm.

“Anyway,” Jagger went on at last, “that was why I took Keri out to dinner the other night. I wanted to shmooze her a bit and try to find out what she was doing.”

I gasped. “Was she the one blackmailing…..?”

“No. It wasn’t her. But if she’d actually published the article about Carlton that she was going after, it would not only have messed with Carlton’s life, it would have ruined everything for the blackmailer. Don’t you see? If the truth came out, there would be nothing left for the blackmailer to hold over Carlton to make him fork over the money.”

“Oh. Sure.”

“So I figure, the blackmailer is probably who killed Keri. To stop her from publishing the facts that would ruin the blackmailer’s case. You get it?”

I nodded, my face scrunched up in deep thoughts. “Yes. I think I do. But who was it?”

“That’s where I get a little fuzzy.”

“Who had the best motive?” I said, returning to my original puzzle. “The police think you might have done it because Marilee claimed she saw you go into that brush area with Keri at the time she was killed. But what would your motive be?”

He looked just a touch uncomfortable. “Okay, I did want to stop her from publishing stuff about Carlton. And I got a little testy with her over it. I definitely called her on it, told her it wasn’t cool. I suppose that might be considered a motive.”

I nodded, biting my lip as I thought that over. “Ingratiating yourself with the boss sort of thing,” I murmured. “Especially if you were expecting to get financially rewarded by Carlton.”

He swung around and glared at me. “Hey, there was nothing like that. Honest.”

I nodded, thinking that over.

“And I didn’t kill anybody. Got it?”

I nodded again. “Good. And there’s still the blackmailer. He or she wouldn’t want Keri to publish what she was finding because then there wouldn’t be any more leverage over Carlton. Right?”

“As far as we know. We’re just speculating. That’s all we can do since we don’t really know what he was being blackmailed about, do we?”

I hesitated, wondering if Jagger knew more than he was telling. It was only common sense to realize that most people involved in this were busy covering their own rear ends, just in case anything might get exposed. And Jagger was one of the best at it, it seemed. Should I tell him what I’d found?
 

Finally, I pulled out Keri’s practice letter and handed it to him. “I found this outside Marilee’s house. I think somebody dropped it when they ran off with some of the papers Marilee was hoarding.”

He read it over quickly, then looked at me and whistled softly. “There it is in black and white,” he noted.
 

The sound of a siren on the distant highway caught his attention. His head turned toward the sound and he seemed to remember he didn’t have much time left.

Chapter Nine

“Listen, I’ve got somebody waiting in a car for me near here,” Jagger said. “I’ve got to go. But I’ve got a mission for you to undertake, if you’re ready for it.”

I should have told him “no” right off the beam, but like a fool I had to ask: “What is that?”

“You know when I had Keri’s clutch purse? I went through it, just in case.”

I glared at him, but he didn’t notice.
 

“I found her microcassette recorder. She told me at dinner the other night that she tried to put all her notes on that recorder and destroy all hard copies in order to keep from leaving a trail behind.”

“Oh. Interesting.”

“Yes. I didn’t put that recorder back into her purse before I gave it up. In fact, I hid it on the grounds of Carlton’s house.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve tried to get back in to get it back, but there are guards there now. They won’t let anyone in. Carlton wouldn’t even see me. I guess he believes the rumors. I want to change that as soon as possible.” He gave me a hopeful smile. “So now I’m counting on you. Think you can get it?”

I sighed. “No. Why would anyone let me in?”

He shook his head. “You never know. Pretty women have their ways.”

“Not me,” I said stubbornly.
 

“Okay, whatever. But just in case you get a chance, here’s where I hid it.” He told me quickly. A car had come up and was waiting, engine running, at the edge of the yard. “Gotta go. Thanks, Mele. Give Jill a hug and a kiss from me.”

And he was gone.
 

I stood there steaming. I’d seen the beautiful brunette who was driving his getaway car.
 

“Hugs and kisses, huh?” I muttered darkly as I headed back to my bed, stopping only to let Sami in too. “Fat chance.”

And this man wanted me to go search out his loot from past trespasses, did he? I was supposed to go where he couldn’t manage to get and do his deed for him? And in the end, he was sure his charm would mean he could trust me to give the thing up to him once I got it. Well, he could think again. Hah!

I went back to bed and slept like a log for about two hours. Then Sami was back, head butting like crazy.

“What?” I moaned at him. “It’s too early.”

But he didn’t stop. He obviously wanted me up and active. Somehow, I knew he wanted me to go out in the back again and talk to someone. Who? I was too groggy to care. All I wanted was to stop this ridiculous head butting.
 

“Okay, okay. I’m going. But you better believe I’m going to start locking my door at night.” I put on a robe this time and clomped out into the yard, very resentfully. But my attitude changed when I saw Aunty Jane.
 

“Aunty Jane! Where have you been? I was worried about you.”

“I had to go,” she said, looking abashed. “I had to hide.”

“Hide?” I got chills. “From what?”

She shook her head. “There is something bad happening in the spirit world right now,” she told me softly, coming close so that she could keep her voice down. “There are fights between strong enemies.”

“Is that why Dante is gone?”

She nodded.
 

My heart raced. Dante was my own special ghost, as least that was what he’d seemed to be. I’d seen him as a child in Hawaii, and I’d been astonished when I’d found him here with my Aunt Bebe. He’d helped me out of a few scrapes, and then he’d warned me he was going to have to be gone for awhile. But that had stretched on and on and I’d begun to wonder if he was ever coming back at all. If there was anything I could do to help Dante, I was ready to do it.
 

“What is it? What can we do?”

She shook her head. “You can’t do anything. It better you don’t know.”

“But…”

“When I can tell you, I will.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure if she meant what she was saying or if this was just her way to let me know I didn’t belong in that world, and it would be better if I didn’t try to intrude. I could understand that.
 

Sami was rubbing up against my ankles, as though he thought he ought to be rewarded with an early breakfast for all his hard work getting me out there. That made me think of things that had been happening lately.
 

“Aunty, what is the deal between cats and ghosts?” I asked her. “I mean, do you have a bond, a special way to communicate…what?”

There was so much I didn’t know about ghosts and how that whole system operated. But this, at least, was something concrete I might be able to understand.
 

“Why does Sami come in to tell me to come out to talk to you?”

She looked at me as though she had no idea what I was talking about, but finally she relented...a bit.

“Cats are special,” she admitted. “They can pass in and out of our space. Sometimes they are almost ghosts. Sometimes they aren’t. But they are protectors. I don’t know why.”

Okay. That was as good as it got. I had to accept that. I thought of the little Siamese cat at the castle. That certainly fit what I’d seen of her.
 

But Aunty was here to talk about something else. I deferred to her. She hesitated. I had a feeling I knew what she wanted to talk about.
 

“So here I am, Aunty. What is it you want to say to me?”

She frowned as though she wasn’t sure how to go on.
 

“Bebe told me about my mother,” I said, watching her reaction.
 

She nodded slowly. “Yes. I heard her.”

“You heard?”

She nodded. “She didn’t tell you the whole story. I think maybe I have to do that.”

“What? What did she leave out?”

“I don’t know if she left it out on purpose, or she just didn’t know about it at the time. But I think it’s only fair if you know. She’s your mother. You should know.”

“Okay.” My heart was thumping with anxiety. “So what happened?”

She seemed to take a deep breath, as though preparing for something hard to do. “Okay. She told you how your mother got involved with De Ponce. How he treated her so special. She felt like a princess. And he had her sing at his performances and she was a sensation.”

“Yes.” How I wished I could have seen her—heard her sing. The longing for my mother was a constant drumbeat to my life.