Little Ghost Lost (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 5) (5 page)

But she seemed tickled to take care of Mandy. Now I just had to wait for Jill to show up.
 

It wasn’t long before I caught sight of the running ladies. I watched as they came closer and closer. Ginny looked tireless, as always, but Jill seemed to be listing a bit.
 

“Hey Mele,” Ginny called as they came down the road in front of the house. She flashed a smile but added, “Sorry. No time to talk.”

“Oh…” I looked at Jill trying manfully to keep up with that energizer bunny in powder blue. Her beautiful blond hair was pulled back into a tight bun and her pretty face looked strained. “Uh…”

“We’ve got a goal,” Ginny called back. “We need to make it to the top of the ridge by the time my minute hand hits twelve.”
 

“Good luck.” I looked at Jill again. She was leaning back and she was mouthing something at me. Her face was strained. Actually, she looked a bit desperate.
 

“Uh…” I didn’t want to ask what she was trying to say. The way she was leaning and mouthing made it very clear she didn’t want Ginny to know what she was trying to communicate to me. What on earth was it? I could almost make out….

And suddenly, I got it!
 

She was quite definitely saying, “Help! Save me!”
 

“Oh!”

I swung into action, quickly jogging up behind them. “Oh Ginny, I’m so sorry, but something has come up and I’m going to have to steal Jill away from you. You see….”

Jill whirled and came to a dead stop and I didn’t have to finish giving any sort of excuse, which was lucky since I didn’t really have one worked up yet. Ginny didn’t hesitate for a moment. She just waved and went on, feet traveling fast, her gaze on her watch. And Jill collapsed in my arms.
 

“Oh my God I’m going to die,” she groaned, panting for breath and clinging to me. “Help me! Is she looking?”

“No.” I hustled her back to the house. “Don’t worry. She didn’t look once. She doesn’t have any idea that you might be wimping out.”

“Wimping out, hah! Attending to my own survival, you mean. That woman is a beast.”

“She’s a real runner. You knew that.”

“Yeah, but knowing it, and living it, are two different things.” She sighed as she slid down onto the top step of the porch and sat there looking woe-be gone. “I thought it was going to be so cool running with Ginny. I was in track and field in high school. I was a good runner. I don’t know what happened.”

She was obviously in dire need of a pep talk. I quickly obliged. “How about five years of college and a few more starting up your coffee shop? You’ve been busy, girl. Good on you for even trying.”

She gave me a baleful look, but she was beginning to perk up. “Next time…,” she began, but I just laughed at her.
 

“Yeah, talk to me about next time once this day is done. We’ll see how you feel then.”

I took her in for a drink of water and a little rest before we headed for the Pennington House. Little by little, she seemed to revive. She looked cute in her electric pink running suit.

“Did you go out and buy that last night?” I asked her, knowing she hadn’t had one when we’d spoken.
 

“Nope. Riley loaned it to me. She’s got a closet full of this stuff.”

Riley was her right hand woman at the Mad for Mocha Coffee Shop she ran in town—and Riley was a fashion plate, unlike the pair of us who usually grabbed whatever was clean on our way out the door. That was why we’d gotten along so well as college roomies. Spontaneous wardrobe, we’d called it. But that was then. Now, we each had other things on our minds.
 

As far as what was going on with me and my job, I’d explained the basics to her, but I’d hesitated over the ghost business.
 

Should I try to lay it all out for her?
 

I decided against it. If things went south and I had to clue her in, I would do it. But I wasn’t going to volunteer the goods as yet. There was no way she would understand and I would probably have to spend the rest of the day trying to explain the unexplainable.
 

Bebe was different. I told my aunt about Mandy so she’d know there was a ghost in the guest bedroom, but Bebe had seen plenty of ghosts in her time and she understood right away. Just because she seemed to have lost the knack of it for the moment didn’t mean she’d forgotten how it worked.
 

But Jill was another story. I’d told her some things over the last few months, but not much. She knew I saw things and heard things that she didn’t, but she didn’t know the half of it. I couldn’t explain it to her. She would think I was nuts. No point to it. After all, we’d lived together all through college and in those days I hadn’t seemed to be too crazy. In fact, she’d never known me to see ghosts during all that time. Would she give me the benefit of the doubt? Someday I was probably going to have to test that, but not now. Not yet.

“Okay,” she said as we prepared to go. “I’m yours for about two hours, but I’ve got to be back at the café by noon.”

“Okay. We should be finished by then.”

We pulled into the driveway at the mansion, and I parked right up by the front door.
 

“You preparing a quick getaway?” Jill asked with a laugh, and I tried to laugh too. She didn’t know how close she’d come to the mark.
 

But I was equipped with more supplies today. I had a nice sized shoulder bag that contained a journal with some notes I’d made about the house, and a packet of photos I’d found in the archives at the library. As we got out of the car, I saw Astrid leaving her little cottage and heading for the big house next door. I waved and she waved back, looking cheery.
 

“Someone named Astrid,” I explained to Jill. I’d already told her that Celinda Moore lived in that house. “She’s a student of Celinda’s, learning all the nuances of smearing yourself with paint and rolling around on things. At least I think that’s what’s going on there.” I shrugged. “Hard to keep it all straight. But it was pretty obvious that Celinda thinks Astrid has got intentions for her husband—of what kind it’s hard to say. At the same time, Celinda and this Richard guy, the silver expert, seem pretty chummy themselves.”

She listened to my admittedly skimpy lowdown on Celinda-folks-- a quick sketch of what I thought might be going on next door. She was enthralled—gossip is always fun-as long as nobody gets hurt!

We walked up onto the porch. I was nervous and I think Jill could tell. She was looking at me curiously. I stopped before I put the key in the door. I realized it wasn’t really fair to take Jill inside without warning her about the ghosts. So my hand was being forced on this one. Oh well.

“Listen,” I said, almost whispering. “The reason I wanted help is….when I was here yesterday, I felt like there were….things here.”

Her eyes widened. “Ghosts?” she said, grabbing my arm. “Seriously? Cool!”

I blinked, pretty sure she didn’t understand the implications here. “But this is serious, Jill. I felt menaced at times and I actually fell out of the second story window.” I pointed up to it and winced. “Actually, at the time, I sort of felt like….”

“You were pushed?” Her eyes were sparkling. “Ooooh!” She frowned. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I’m fine. But….” I pulled up the sleeves of my shirt to show her the Band-Aids. Her eyes got very wide. “That’s why I brought you with me. I didn’t want to go in alone. I should have told you before. But now that you know, if you’d rather we didn’t….”

She shook her head vehemently. “Are you kidding? I’ve always wanted to find a haunted house somewhere and go exploring.” She was fairly jiggling with excitement. “Let’s go in.”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded. “Come on, come on!”

“Okay.”

I was about to insert the key in the lock when a scream filled the air. We both jumped and stared at each other, chilled to the bone.
 

Jill looked up at the windows. “Was that…?”

“No,” I said. “I’m pretty sure it was coming from Celinda’s house.” We ran down the stairs and started toward the brooding Craftsman across the rubble-filled yard. “Come on.”

We reached the back door that had been Astrid’s entrance at the same time Tom Hackett, the annoying man from the day before, got there. We didn’t speak. We barely looked at each other. All three of us ran inside and went immediately toward the library.

There was Astrid sobbing uncontrollably. And on the floor was the body of a slim, older man with silver hair and a European-looking goatee. Blood had pooled around his head. He was quite obviously dead.
 

“Oh Jerry, Jerry, oh no! Jerry.”

I took that to mean the man was Jerry Moore, Celinda’s husband. That was a shock. Wasn’t he supposed to be in Santa Barbara?

But then, that lovely city was only a little over two hours away. He could easily have come home some time during the night. I looked at him again, feeling helpless and sorry. Poor Celinda. Hadn’t she gone to Cambria for the weekend?
 

Tom Hatchett was the one with the presence of mind to call the police. I tried to comfort Astrid, but since I hardly knew her, it was a bit awkward.
 

“Do you know where Celinda is?” I asked her. “She ought to be told.”

“Celinda!” Astrid spit the name out with venom. “She doesn’t care. She’s probably….” Her voice faded as she realized where she was and what she was saying. Turning away, she sobbed quietly again, avoiding the rest of us.
 

I didn’t have Celinda’s number. But then I decided it was probably just as well to leave that sort of thing to the police. I looked at Jill and shrugged. Maybe we should just go.

“You can’t go,” Astrid said, as though she had read my mind. “You’re a witness now. You have to give a statement to the cops.” Tears welled in her eyes and she started crying again.
 

I couldn’t help it. I had to ask.
 

“Were you close?” I said. “You and Jerry, I mean. I know you were taking art lessons from Celinda, and that you were renting the cottage out back, but you seem especially upset with this so I just wondered….”

She glared at me. “I wouldn’t call us close, exactly,” she said carefully. “But I was working for him. I was helping to catalog some of the silver items he was preparing to sell at auction.” She looked from me to Jill and back again. “He had some things he wanted to keep private, even from his wife. So you see, I have reason to be upset. Besides. I was the one who found the body.”

“Oh, sure,” I said, nodding and wondering why she felt she had to justify her actions to me. “Of course.”

That made me think. “Did you have a key to the back door?” I asked.
 

She gave me a look that was even colder. “I knew where they kept the back door key, if that’s any help,” she said, a bit of sarcasm in her tone. “I thought they were both gone. Jerry was supposed to be staying in Santa Barbara for another night.”

I nodded. “So why did you come in the house?” I asked, trying to make it sound like innocent curiosity—and not an accusation.
 

She looked confused for a moment, then said quickly, “Oh, I…uh…left some papers here. I needed to get them. That’s all.” She glared at me defensively. “I come in that way all the time. They’ve been very good to me, you know.”

“Yes, I thought that was the case,” I said. “I’m sure you were all very close.”

She started to react to that, then thought better of it and went back to sobbing. I turned back to Jill who’d been listening to it all with wide-eyed interest.
 

“Did you see any papers in her hand?” Jill whispered to me. “Cuz if she picked anything up, she must be hiding it somewhere about her person. And that cute little outfit doesn’t leave much room for hidey-holes.”

I nodded, thinking the same thing. And I had just one more question.

“Astrid, what happened to your friend?”

“What friend?”

“The one you told Celinda was coming to stay with you for the night.”

“Oh.” She looked uncomfortable. “She didn’t show up.”

“Oh.” Interesting. Jerry came back from Santa Barbara a day early, once he knew Celinda was gone. And Astrid’s friend sleepover didn’t happen. And that meant….nothing that I could think of. If they’d been planning a quick affair for the night, Astrid would have known Jerry had been assaulted. That blood around his head looked like it had been there for quite a while. Had she heard anything? She wasn’t saying. So she didn’t know anything--unless…unless she was the one who did it.
 

The police station wasn’t far away and we could already hear the sirens coming toward us by the time Tom had finished giving all the information to the 911 operator. I looked at Jill, wishing we could just leave. It was so embarrassing to be found hanging around the recently deceased all over town—but that seemed to be my special talent lately. I sighed and gave up plotting escape routes. The sirens came to a stop outside.
 

I looked around the room, thinking about how I’d been there only hours before talking to Celinda, and now….

Then I realized something was missing. The huge, beautiful silver Tiffany pitcher was gone. The heavy old table was totally empty, though you could still see the dust line around where it had been. I glanced around quickly to see if it had been stored in any of the many glass showcases, but I didn’t see it anywhere. However I did see some empty places in the glass cases—empty places I hadn’t noticed before.

Hmmmm.

The police arrived, coming into the house with their usual swagger. Detective Roy was on the job. I sighed. It was always good to see him, with his handsome face and that chiseled chin, but why did it so often have to be this way? He walked in with a number of others, some police, some forensic types. Roy seemed to be the senior officer in charge and he got right to work without a word to me.
 

It was so odd. He couldn’t seem to look me in the eye, and at the same time, he looked like he was holding his breath, turning red. Finally, he sidled up to me and said out of the corner of his mouth, “Could you please go and wait outside?”