Skeletons in the Attic (A Marketville Mystery Book 1) (25 page)

Gloria Grace’s promise to follow through on Corbin Osgoode had done wonders for my peace of mind. For the first time since I’d moved to Marketville, I woke up ready to face Misty Rivers.

She answered her phone on the second ring. “Hello, Callie.”

Damn call display. Ruined any element of surprise. “Hi Misty. I’m wondering if you had some time to stop by. I have some questions. About my mother.”
Among other things.

“You’re in luck. I’ve got nothing planned for today that can’t be shifted to another. I can swing by this morning if that works.”

“It does. Thank you.”

Misty was at my door within the hour. She had managed to squeeze into a pair of black jeans that were ten years and ten pounds away from the present. The jeans were topped off with a rainbow-colored crocheted sweater that looked homemade and probably was. The inky blue nail polish had been changed to black with silver glitter at the tips.

“Misty. Thanks for coming.” I led her into the kitchen. “Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee or tea?”

“Do you have milk yet?” Said with the hint of a smile, but it was a definite dig in reference to our first meeting. What Misty was telling me in a not-so-subtle way was that she remembered how dismissive I’d been. I let it go.

“I do indeed. I also have some store-bought chocolate chip cookies.”

“Then coffee please. One sugar. I’ll pass on the cookies, much as I’d love one. I should probably pass on the sugar, too, but can’t seem to manage it.” Misty looked down at her too-tight jeans and shifted in her seat. “I’m trying to lose a bit of weight. Unfortunately, it keeps finding me.”

Could this woman actually read my mind? Or had I stared at those jeans without realizing it? I got the coffeemaker going, put the mugs, milk, and sugar on the bistro table, all the while trying to steady my nerves. Watched as the coffee dripped, dripped, dripped.

Misty reached for the milk and sugar, poured some of each into her empty mug, and stirred the contents into a thick paste. “On the phone you said you had some questions for me.”

I poured the coffee, tried to keep my hands steady and my voice calm. “Actually, I have some things to show you if that’s okay.”

“I’m more than happy to help.”

I went to the cupboard where I’d hidden everything inside the cereal box—admittedly feeling a bit 007. I took out the locket and tarot cards and placed them on the table. “I found these in an envelope, hidden under the living room carpet. At first I thought my mother had hidden them there but I no longer believe that.”

“What
do
you believe?” Misty’s black eyes narrowed.

“That you placed them there, knowing I’d rip up the carpet in short order.”

Misty clapped softly, her silver-tipped fingernails sparkling in the kitchen’s soft light. “I wondered when you’d figure that out. I thought I might have given myself away when I mentioned the envelope the last time I was here. I saw you’d been tearing up the carpet and knew you must have found it.”

“
So you covered up the slip by claiming to have psychic vision.”

“Guilty as charged, though in my defense, I do have some psychic abilities. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t show me the locket and tarot cards there and then. Why wait until now?”

“I’d just found the envelope. It didn’t even have a chance to process what I’d seen, let alone show it to anyone. I didn’t know whether I could trust you. I knew my father had, but he was dead, and I’m not convinced that his fall was an accident.
Add to the mix that Leith seemed skeptical about you and your psychic abilities and you can understand my hesitation.”

“Leith was skeptical?”

“Yes,” I said, not sure why that was the point Misty had zoned in on. “Why, does that matter?”

“No, I’m just surprised. He never seemed like a doubter to me. Go on.”

“After you left, I checked the peephole in the door. I could see right into the kitchen. I figured you’d seen me hiding the envelope in the cupboard. That really gave rise to my suspicions.”

“I didn’t look through the peephole and see you hide it, but I can certainly see where you would have arrived at that conclusion.” Misty leaned back in her chair, her eyes piercing in their appraisal. “You trust me now, though. At least enough to invite me here and do a show and tell. What’s changed?”

“I met with Gloria Grace Pietrangelo yesterday.”

No reaction beyond a shrug.

“You might remember her as G. G. Pietrangelo.” Still no reaction from Misty. “She used to write for the
Marketville Post
. She covered my mother’s disappearance extensively.”

A flicker of recognition in the inky black eyes. A nod. “I remember her now. Weird eyes. Pale brown, a hint of amber. Skinny. She was very intense.”

“She’s chilled out some,” I said, trying to imagine a skinny Gloria Grace. I couldn’t. “The way I figure it, there was only one person with the means, motive, and opportunity to hide that envelope. That was you. You lived here. You were into tarot. You worked with my mother at the food bank. What I haven’t been able to figure out is why.”

Misty nodded her approval. “I admire your powers of deductive reasoning, not to mention your investigative research. As for the why, it’s a long story that goes an even longer way back. I think I’ll take you up on the offer of chocolate chip cookies after all.”

“I first met your mother in the spring of 1984,” Misty said. “It was a blustery day in late March, the kind of day where you start to think winter will never let go. We were manning the Canada Day tree-planting booth at the Marketville Home Show. It was held indoors, but we had set up the display outside the front doors. It was your mom’s idea. She figured we could get people coming and going. Mostly I remember how we just about perished from the cold.”

A memory. Me, tobogganing down a hill, laughing, my mom clapping and cheering me on, her face red from the cold. I wondered if I could find the hill again. I saw Misty looking at me with open curiosity. “Sorry, you were mentioning the cold. It made me remember tobogganing with my mom.”

Misty nodded. “That would have been the hill over by Tom Flanagan Park. Sorry to say that it’s no longer there. It’s all houses now, with ravine lots and fenced-in yards.”

Another lead gone. If I could have walked that hill, maybe another memory would have come to me. As it was—

“Back to the day I met your mom,” Misty said, interrupting my thoughts. “The idea was to hand out brochures about the initiative and get more volunteers for the big day. We also handed out maple seedlings for local residents to plant on their own property on Canada Day. Your mom was a born leader, and I’ve always been more of a follower, so we were well suited. By the end of the day, we’d formed the beginning of a friendship.”

“If you were friends, then why didn’t my dad know who you were?” I thought about Misty standing beside Leith with the reward poster. “Or maybe he did, but for some reason Leith didn’t bother to share that information when he was going over the terms of my dad’s will.”

“You mustn’t blame Leith. Your father was insistent. If anything happened to him, you were not to be told about our past history. To say Leith was unhappy about that condition would be an understatement, but your father was not to be swayed. He truly wanted you to go at this with a completely unbiased eye.” Misty smiled. “He also knew you, Callie. If you thought some swindling psychic was after his money, you’d work tirelessly to find the truth on your own. The fact that you’ve learned as much as you have in such a short time proves him right.”

“But you’d been living here when he drew up the will. When he had the accident. He’d hired you when he was alive. He must have trusted you.”

“He did. He trusted me enough to know I’d do what I could to help you. Even if you didn’t want my help.”

“The locket and the tarot cards. You hid them under the carpet, knowing I’d find them.”

“I knew you were being left money to renovate the house. The carpeting was well past its prime and there was hardwood underneath. I figured you’d remove the carpet sooner rather than later. Putting the envelope there would lend a hint of mystery. Nothing like a good mystery to motivate a curious mind.”

“Where did you find them?”

“In the attic.”

“You were in the attic?”

“It’s not like I broke into it,” Misty said, her tone indignant. “Your dad gave me the key and asked me to take a poke around. He knew I’d been a friend of Abigail’s and he thought I might find something that didn’t add up. The locket was in a blue trunk, in a small enameled box with some other jewelry.”

“Was the photo of Reid inside when you found it?”

“Why do you ask?” Staring down at her fingernails.

“Because I showed the locket and the photograph to Reid, and he claimed not to know anything about it. I’m inclined to believe him. He was very forthright about his affair with my mother. He had no reason to lie about the locket.”

Misty looked up, stared at me with those piercing dark eyes.

“No reason to lie about the photograph, maybe. The locket…that’s a different kettle of fish entirely.”

“What are you saying, Misty?”

“That maybe I added the photo of Reid and faked his handwriting.”

Faked? Sounded more like forged to me.
“Maybe?”

“Alright fine. I did add the photo. But I know for a fact that Reid gave that locket to your mom.”

I thought about what Reid had said.
I don’t know anything about a photograph inside a locket.
Not
, I don’t know anything about a locket
. I realized how easily he had played me. “The locket, it was from the twenties. Was it some sort of family heirloom?”

Misty nodded. “Reid told Abby it had belonged to his mother, or was it his grandmother? It doesn’t matter. It was some sort of family heirloom. He’d kept it hidden from Melanie because she wouldn’t have appreciated it. Melanie liked new things. She would have viewed the locket as a hand-me-down. Your mom, on the other hand, she loved anything vintage.”

I thought about the Calamity Jane poster in the attic. “That still doesn’t explain your duplicity.”

“I wanted you to know about Reid. The locket alone wouldn’t have done that, now would it? You’d just have thought your dad gave it to your mom. Or that it was something passed down from your grandmother.”

That much was true. In fact, without the photo of Reid, it’s likely I would never have connected him to my mother. “I assume you selected the tarot cards for the same reason.”

Misty nodded. “I’d hoped that you would come to me for an explanation about them. When you didn’t…well, I could hardly ask you about them, now could I?”

“I wasn’t sure I could trust you. I’m sorry.”

“I probably would have felt the same way, if our roles were reversed. What did you end up doing about the tarot cards?”

“I visited Randi at Sun, Moon & Stars. It turns out she used to live here, just before you, though back then she went by the name of Jessica Tamarand. She broke her lease, claimed the house was haunted.”

“Ella told me about the previous tenant. I gathered she and Ella didn’t get on too well.”

“She saw Ella as a busybody, and Ella saw her as standoffish. But it was Ella that told me that Jessica worked as a psychic at that ‘new-agey’ place behind the whole foods store. I checked and saw that a Randi worked there. I figured Randi might be Jessica Tamarand. I was right.”

“You don’t need psychic abilities,” Misty said with a smile. “You’re much better at playing amateur detective than I am. I’d heard of Randi, of course, but I never connected the dots. What did she tell you about the cards?”

“Essentially, she felt that whoever had sent them had chosen cards that would represent a literal meaning. She didn’t think that they were from an actual reading. That’s when I began to think you might have been behind the cards, though at the time I thought they had been sent to my mother and she’d hidden them so my dad wouldn’t find them. It never occurred to me that you might have hidden both for me to find. At least not until I spoke with Gloria Grace.”

“Randi was right. I did select them based on the imagery. I didn’t think you knew anything about tarot cards, and as I said before, I assumed you’d come to me for an interpretation.”

“I appreciate what Randi told me about them, but she was quick to point out her reading was subjective.” I pointed to the cards on the table. “Will you tell me what you meant them to represent?”

Misty tapped each card with a silver-tipped fingernail then gently pushed The Empress and The Emperor in my direction. “The Empress, of course, represents your mother, The Emperor your grandfather. Notice how The Empress looks as if she might be pregnant, how The Emperor is so stern and authoritative. Your grandfather, the obstinate old goat, he could never forgive your mother for getting pregnant as a teenager. He even refused to speak to her or your father, let alone acknowledge you. Then something happened just before she disappeared. It made me think he might have had a change of heart.”

I started in surprise. This was something new. Yvette believed that Corbin had been too stubborn to change his mind, and I’d found no evidence to the contrary, not since I’d been to Marketville and certainly not while I was growing up. “What happened?”

“She received a phone call one day at the food bank. That in itself was surprising. None of us had ever received a call there. She seemed flustered during the call, not that it lasted long. When she hung up she said something along the lines of forgiveness coming at a high price, but she wouldn’t elaborate.” Misty sighed softly. “That phone call rattled her to the core. A week later, she was gone.”

“What made you think the call came from my grandfather?”

“I’ll admit it’s a leap. But if not your grandfather, who else could it have been?”

I didn’t have an answer. I only knew that if it was my grandfather, my grandmother hadn’t been aware of it. “What about the next two cards, The Lovers and the Three of Swords? Randi told me that the Three of Swords represents sorrow, deep sadness, and heartache. What interested her were the three swords, as if the unhappiness was shared between the lovers and a third party. Is that what you meant? That the affair between Reid and my mother was causing pain to all of them?”

“Randi is very astute. Your mom tried to break it off with Reid, I can’t tell you how many times. She just couldn’t seem to make a clean break. She’d go a few weeks, even a few months without seeing him, but he was like opium to her. It was only a matter of time until your father found out.” Misty tapped the Death card. “That was the death of their marriage.”

Another surprise. There had never been a whisper of my mother’s infidelity, not when I grew up, and not in my father’s letter to me.

“He knew?”

“Not at first, not for a long time. Love truly can be blind. Of course, once Maggie the mouthpiece got wind of it, there was no stopping her from going to see your father as a ‘friend.’” Misty laughed. “Ella Cole used to call her Magpie Lonergan, an aptly fitting name.”

I smiled, remembering Ella saying those exact same words.

“Your father had a tough time reconciling it,” Misty continued, “and the strain of trying to work things out really seemed to wreak havoc with your mom’s health. She’d lost a lot of weight, and she’d already been thin to start with. Her skin took on a waxy look, and her hair had all but lost its shine. I told her I was worried about her, and that’s when she told me they were considering a trial separation. I suppose that’s what made the police so suspicious of your father. They just couldn’t prove anything, and without a body—”

“But you believed him, didn’t you? So did Leith. Otherwise why would the two of you hand out reward posters?”

“I’m not sure what I believed, Callie. I suppose I just wanted to find out the truth. Your mother might have been an adulterer but she was my best friend, and that meant something to me. It still does. As for Leith, we go back a lot further than that reward poster. You see, once upon a time, we were married.”