Leighann Dobbs - Mystic Notch 02 - A Spirited Tail (19 page)

Jimmy rubbed his elbow. “Is it just me or is it chilly in here?”

I exchanged a look with Charles. “The air conditioning vent is blowing on you there.” 

Jimmy scooted over a few inches and I repressed a smile, which quickly faded as I looked at the pictures. 

Pandora and Ranger came to join us, and Jimmy petted Ranger’s back, then Stroked Pandora behind the ears. Pandora must have liked that because she jumped into his lap and started purring loudly. Jimmy’s face lit up and he rubbed her neck and belly.

The pictures were old eight-by-ten’s, shiny and aged with curled edges. Most were black and white but a few were color. They had that yellow tinge typical of colored photos from the 1960s. 

One of the pictures showed Lily lying on her back, her eyes staring blankly, the strange triangle mark on her forehead.  She was in a bedroom, which I assumed was one of the guest rooms at the Van Dorn mansion. It was lavishly decorated in a 1940s style. I realized I’d never been upstairs at the Van Dorn’s and wondered if I should check out the room. 

Jimmy pointed to a stack of yellowed papers filled with old-fashioned typewriting. “According to the file, Lily was hit on the back of the head with a blunt instrument.”

My eyes widened. “Just like Bruce.”

He nodded. 

Remembering what Charles had said about the talcum powder, I grabbed a magnifying glass from behind the counter and trained it on Lily’s hair. Sure enough, I could just barely make out tiny, white flecks in her hair.

“Does it say anything about the powder in her hair in the report?”

“Huh?” Jimmy grabbed the magnifying. “Wow, how did you notice that?”

“Good eyes.” I shrugged, sliding my eyes to Charles.

Jimmy flipped through the papers. “Here it is. It says that was calcium carbonate on the lab results.”

“Is that what talcum powder was made of?” 

“I don’t know.”

I reached for the stack of papers and thumbed through them, quickly reading the notes on Lily’s investigation. “Looks like they didn’t do much investigating.”

Jimmy nodded. “All the clues pointed to Charles.” 

“Or were set up to point to him.” I put the report down and started on the other stack, the one about Charles’ death.

The first picture was of Charles slumped over his desk, which I recognized as the very room from which Steve was running his eBay business. I wondered if he knew his uncle had died in that room … or if he cared.

Charles’ ghost glanced down at the photo, then gasped and swirled agitatedly. I noticed Robert Frost and Franklin Pierce poking their heads out from one of the rows of bookshelves. Frost waved to Charles who squinted, then widened his eyes in recognition and waved back before gliding over to them. The two men shook hands like long lost friends, which I guess they were, considering that Charles used to channel Frost.  As I turned my attention back to the gruesome picture, I heard Frost introducing Van Dorn to Pierce.

Charles had been shot. A second picture revealed the gun on the floor under his dangling hand. Switching back to the first picture, I could see his head had fallen on the desk blotter and a dark puddle spread out under it, the strangely tinted, colored photo, showing reddish-orange edges in the puddle. 

The suicide note, written neatly in fountain pen, was conveniently at the corner of the desk, just a corner of it resting under the top of his head. The orange fountain pen lay uncapped on top of the letter, as if he’d written it then shot himself, not even bothering to care if the ink dried up on the nib. I thought it was pretty convenient that no blood got on the note so the whole thing could be easily read.

The transcript of the note was in the files. It was short and sweet—a simple confession of how he killed Lily and then couldn’t live with himself.

“Look at the placement of the suicide note. Isn’t it convenient that no blood got on it? That note would have been directly in front of him on the desk when he was writing it. Do you think he would have had the presence of mind to move it to the side in his despondent state?”

Jimmy frowned at the picture. “It doesn’t seem like he would, but then maybe he realized there would be a … err … mess, and he wanted to be sure they read the confession.” 

Pandora meowed and jumped down from Jimmy’s lap. 

With a chill, I noticed the desk in the picture was the same one Steve had been using. Had there been a stain on the top? In the picture, Charles had a blotter which I assume had since been removed, but I made a mental note to check the room anyway—not that I wanted to see the bloodstains, but there could be other clues.

Pandora trotted back over, dropping a pen on the floor in front of Jimmy. 

“She’s not going to let us forget the pen incident with Steve,” Jimmy said, rolling his eyes.

I picked up the thin file on Charles. “There’re hardly any notes on Charles death, either.”

“Once it was ruled a suicide and the note was his confession for Lily’s murder, they stopped investigating both cases,” Jimmy said.

“The
police
stopped investigating. But maybe not everyone else did.” I tapped the pile of typewritten papers. “We need to go check out Bruce’s place. He may have a clue the police never found.”

***

We closed up the bookstore and headed to Bruce’s, despite the protesting squeal of Pandora. Ranger wanted to come, too, but wasn’t nearly as annoying as Pandora about it.  

I hated to leave the shop closed during the day. I did, after all, have a business to run. But something told me we should get to Bruce’s right away and I was getting tired of seeing Charles’ ghost glaring at me at every turn. I was just glad I had inherited my house and didn’t have a mortgage. As it was, I’d probably have to eat ramen noodles all next week.

Bruce lived in a secluded area. We drove down a meandering dirt road about a half-mile past the Van Dorn place, and came out in a peaceful clearing where Bruce’s cottage peeked out from behind a stand of tall pine trees. 

The exterior was freshly painted—red with white trim. A rocking chair sat idle on the porch, and window boxes with dried-up flowers that must have added a spark of color at one time hung below the windows. I looked at the dead flowers with a heavy heart. Bruce obviously took pride in his place, but he wasn’t around to water the flowers anymore and they’d suffered without his attention. 

Jimmy took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. “Remind me to lock up when we leave.”

Inside, the cabin was as neat as the outside. An old sofa sat against the wall in the living room, a crocheted afghan in greens and oranges draped over it’s back like a shawl. Next to the living room was a small kitchen with knotty pine cabinets and old appliances. The dining room had papers and photos spread all over the table.

“These are the photos.” Jimmy pointed to the dining room table.

I looked down at the glossy photos, newspaper clippings, and what looked like some old ticket stubs. A cherry red fountain pen sat on the table next to a strange, white oval object in a plastic bag. The object had apparently deteriorated over the years and some white powder had caked the inside of the bag. 

“What’s that?” I pointed to the white object.

Jimmy wrinkled his face at it, then picked it up and studied it. “Huh, that’s weird. It’s a cuttlebone.”

“Cuttlebone? What the heck is a cuttlebone?”

“It’s for birds. They sharpen their beaks on it. It’s actually the spine of some type of squid - cuttlefish.”

I was kind of grossed out about the whole squid spine thing. “Did Bruce have a bird?”

Jimmy looked around the room. “I didn’t see one when we were here before.”

I made a quick survey of the house, my gut churning at the thought of finding a cage with the fragile body of a parakeet or canary dead on the bottom. It didn’t take long. The cabin was small, just one floor, and the only door, besides the front door and the one in the kitchen was a door off the dining room leading to a crawlspace under the cottage. I was glad I didn’t find a dead bird, or a birdcage. My search brought me back to the dining room where I looked down at the photos again.

In one of the pictures, I recognized the bedroom in which Lily died. This one had no body, though. This picture must have been taken after … or before.  

“Didn’t Gus and Striker think it was odd that Bruce would have these pictures of Van Dorn’s?” I asked. “Some of these look similar to the police photos.

“Well, that’s just it. We didn’t know these were of Van Dorn’s—none of us had seen the other photos from the old case.” 

He had a point. None of them had been in Van Dorn’s until
after
they’d been to Bruce’s, so they wouldn’t recognize the interior of the house in the photos and besides, why would Striker and Gus care about an old solved case anyway?

I turned to the pile of newspaper clippings, all from the month of Charles’ death. There were articles about parties and some of the attendees. Then, of course, several about Lily’s death and Charles’ alleged suicide.  Something in one of the articles caught my eye.

“Check this out. It says Charles had a rival. Someone named Claire Voyant … it sounds like they were real enemies.”

“Bad enough enemies that she would have killed him? And what kind of name is Claire Voyant, anyway?” Jimmy asked.  

“Yeah, it is kind of silly name. She must have been a medium or wanted people to think she was. Maybe Charles and this Claire Voyant were battling over customers. Maybe she thought if she got Charles out of the way, there would be more customers for her.”

“Money
is
one of the common motives for murder,” Jimmy said.

“And so is jealousy. Maybe there was a love triangle between
her
, Charles and Lily,” I added.

“Or her, Charles and Gladys,” Jimmy mused. “You keep going for this love triangle angle, but I’m not so sure about that.”

I didn’t want to have to tell him about the love letters in order to get him to see why I was so sure about that. “Well, it makes sense, and Les Price seems to think it could be Gladys, too. She’d fit the bill for the older crimes as well.”

“Les Price? The writer? How does he know?”

I told him about my talk with Les and how he’d said his father’s notes also indicated there might be something funny going on with Gladys. My mind drifted to the stream gaging station but I didn’t tell Jimmy since I didn’t want to send him on a wild goose chase and get him in trouble with Gus.

“What do you make of all this?” Jimmy asked me, indicating the table full of notes and pictures.

“It looks like maybe Bruce wasn’t satisfied with the way things were handled back then and had been investigating it himself all these years.”

“For fifty years?”

He had a point. Fifty years was a long time to investigate something. “Maybe not all this time. It could be that the recent events with Charles’ brother dying and Steve selling stuff off brought it all up again and he decided to look into it.”

“Maybe he was looking into it because
he
had something to hide,” Jimmy suggested.

“He might have had something to hide from fifty years ago, but he certainly didn’t bash himself in the back of the head, so even if Bruce Norton
did
have a secret, there’s someone else out there now who has one, too.”

***

We got back to the shop with a few hours to spare before I had to head out to Van Dorn’s. When I opened the door, something caught my attention behind me. I looked over to see a black car and I got the distinct impression the driver was watching me, even though I couldn’t see through the dark windows. Had it been following me? 

I shrugged and entered the shop. I wasn’t worried. Felicity and Claire must have changed cars—didn’t they think I would know it was them?

Ranger greeted me as soon as we stepped in. He sniffed me thoroughly and barked loudly. 

“Shhh…” I stroked his ears and he calmed down. “Good boy.”

Ranger must have been coming out of his funk. He’d greeted me in a similar manner when I’d gone to pick the two of them up at my house after my trip to the Moonlight Motel this morning. Except at home, he’d seemed very agitated and barked much louder. I hoped he wasn’t becoming too attached to me and showing some sort of separation anxiety. I needed to find him a new home and quick.

“Ranger must smell his old home on me. He needs to find his new forever home.” I glanced slyly at Jimmy but he wasn’t paying any attention. He was busy petting Pandora, who had ignored me entirely and was now lying on her back while Jimmy rubbed her belly.

“Yeah, poor guy.” Jimmy stood up amidst a cacophony of protesting mewls from Pandora.

The bells over the door jangled and Pepper rushed in, tea bags in hand. 

“I saw you guys come in. Did you get any more clues?” She looked hopefully from me to Jimmy.

“You might say that.” I filled her in on everything that had happened since I last talked to her

“Wow, you’ve been busy.” She turned to Jimmy. “I made you some more of my special tea bags.” 

She handed the tea bags to Jimmy, winking at me over his shoulder when he wasn’t looking.

“Thanks.” He beamed at her and I noticed her looking at him approvingly like he was some sort of successful experiment. I had to admit, he did seem more confident, and looked it, too. His shoulders weren’t slumped now as if he was trying to disappear, which made his chest seem broader, and I noticed how he looked me in the eye more instead of always avoiding eye contact. Of course, I liked to think his newfound confidence was due to me passing along some of my investigative skills, but maybe Pepper’s teas did have something to do with it.

“So you really think Gladys is the killer? Isn’t she kind of old?” Pepper’s question pulled me out of my thoughts.

“I can think of several motives for her and Les Price seems to think she could have been the killer fifty years ago. I saw her chopping wood and she could definitely club someone to death.”

“This Claire Voyant person … if she really had a rivalry with him, she would have had a good motive, too,” Pepper said.