Stay Tuned for Murder (10 page)

“Just a little. We’ve been running some promos about it,” I told her, “but why don’t you fill us in on what you know. I’m sure they’d like to get an inside track on the story.”

“Well, here’s what I can tell you. The story goes that Ronald Paley is supposed to have placed several important documents inside the capsule.” She had leaned in too close to the mike, and it made a harsh popping sound when she said “Paley.” I angled the mike away from her and she continued. “You’re new here, Maggie, but you’ve probably heard that the Paleys were very important people in Cypress Grove history, and Ronald Paley was one of the town’s founders.”

I nodded, trying to look suitably impressed.

“Excuse me, but my daughter’s writing a term paper on the time capsule,” the caller cut in. Either she was bored by Mildred’s trip down memory lane or she just had one of those unfortunate whiny voices. “She’s having a heck of a time trying to dig up information about it. What’s the big deal, anyway? What did this Paley guy put in it, and why’s it such a big secret?” Her voice raked across the line, gritty with impatience.

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Mildred said, all apologies. “It’s not a secret at all, but perhaps you didn’t know there was a huge fire at the courthouse that destroyed a lot of important documents. The old courthouse building on Elm Street was burned right to the ground. And of course, this was before the days of computers and the Internet, so people had no way to salvage all the information that was being stored there.”

“So a lot of history is missing.”

She gave a little sigh. “Births, deaths, marriages. It’s sad to think that priceless memories and documents are gone forever, but that seems to be the case. I’ve been researching Ronald Paley for the past few months, and I’ve come up with a few interesting tidbits, but not as much as I’d hoped.”

“Really? What have you found?” I asked, curious. The main thing I knew about the Paleys was that the town’s founder was fond of naming parks and streets after himself.

Mildred waited a beat before replying. “There might be a few surprises when the time capsule is opened.” She spoke slowly and precisely, as if she was weighing her words with care. “I think a few townspeople might get more than they bargained for, but I suppose I shouldn’t say anything else.” She exhaled audibly. “It will all come out soon enough.”

Vera Mae raised her eyebrows and locked eyes with me. Vera Mae and I worked together so closely, I could guess what was going through her mind.
What will come out soon enough? Is there a story here? Is this something we should be pursuing ?

“What about the local newspaper?” I asked, thinking of my reporter friend, Nick Harrison at the
Gazette
. “Surely they’d have records going back to that time, wouldn’t they?”

“You’d think so,” Mildred offered. “But the newspaper building also burned to the ground in 1970. It was just an odd sequence of events, or some people would say, a strange twist of fate. It’s all very perplexing. We’re left with a giant puzzle, it seems.”

“Like a jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing,” Vera Mae said.

“Exactly,” Mildred agreed. “But all is takes is one piece to complete it.”

We went to break then, and it gave me a few minutes to mull over what Mildred had told the listeners. Ronald Paley had placed some important papers inside the time capsule, and Mildred had hinted that a few citizens would be surprised (or maybe shocked?) at what would be revealed. But of course Ronald Paley was dead, and there was no way to ask him.

Althea may—or may not—have known something about the contents of the time capsule, and now Althea was dead. And Althea was supposed to have been present at the time capsule celebration. Could this be significant? Was someone afraid of what she might say or do at the unveiling?

Michael—if you believe in ghosts—had appeared during the séance to warn the townsfolk that there was danger afoot. He’d hinted that there was an evil presence in Cypress Grove, and Althea was murdered sometime after the séance. Of course he hadn’t specifically said “murder,” but he was planting the suggestion that something awful was about to happen.

And Althea was at the séance—not only present in the room, but up onstage with Chantel. Was this significant, or just an odd coincidence? Another point: Chantel had specifically requested that Althea join the group at the table even though it was pretty obvious that Althea was reluctant to do so. Was this important, or just another coincidence?

I remembered that Sigmund Freud said “There are no coincidences.” So going along with his theory, these two facts must somehow be connected.

And then there was the question of Michael the spirit guide. Was Michael just part of Chantel’s usual shtick, or had she dredged him up last night to increase her book sales? I’d seen Chantel on a couple of television talk shows, and from what I could recall, she always spouted messages of doom and gloom. The audience ate it up; it was part of her standard act.

It probably makes for better theater, I decided. Just one of the basic laws of entertainment. If you’re going to have someone from the spirit world communicate with mortals, it’s more effective if the spirit says something startling, not mundane. You get more attention if you up the ante and act like something really important is at stake. A life-or-death issue, for example. An evil presence, unknown dangers lurking, ready to pounce on unsuspecting folks. Think about it. “Beware the Ides of March” sounds a lot more compelling than “Annual White Sale This Thursday.”

The other possibility, of course, is that Chantel really
does
know something about a few dark secrets buried in the town’s past, and she invented Michael to pave the way for her “revelations.” She’d probably spring them on us when she decided the time was right.

The moment the show was over, I thanked Mildred and called Nick Harrison at the
Gazette
. We agreed to meet for an early dinner at Gino’s, my favorite Italian restaurant in town. Lark was taking Mom to a yoga class, so there was no reason for me to hurry home. Too many thoughts were swirling in my head, and I knew I needed to run them by someone cool and objective.

Gino’s is an Italian restaurant close to WYME that I discovered when I was new in town. It’s a little kitschy, with its red-and-white checked tablecloths and photos of long-dead opera singers lining the walls, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it. The food is good, the prices reasonable, and the service fast, perfect for the business crowd.

Nick was already waiting for me, sitting at one of the outdoor patio tables. He had the remains of an antipasto plate in front of him (a dish that the menu claims serves four to six people), and I could see that he had nearly polished off the whole thing.

“Hey there,” he said by way of greeting when I sat down. He was talking around a mouthful of marinated artichokes. “I did a little snooping around on Madame Chantel.” He patted a thick file on the chair beside him. “You were right to be suspicious. She’s a piece of work.” He looked thoughtfully at the demolished antipasto plate and popped a giant stuffed olive in his mouth. He practically inhaled it and generously nudged the lettuce-lined plate toward me. “Help yourself,” he said with a grin.

“Thanks. I think I’ll pass.” I nudged the plate back at him.

Nick is a good-looking guy, tall and athletic with a boyish smile and dirty-blond hair worn on the longish side. Today he was wearing what I call Cypress Grove casual: a snowy white golf shirt, pressed khakis, and loafers with no socks.

There’s enough of an age difference between us that Nick thinks of me as an older sister, not potential date material. We bonded when I first came to town and sat through a rubber chicken dinner at the Cypress Grove Press Club. You would think Nick and I would be rivals, but we’re not; he’s not really interested in the pop-psych field, and I have no interest in covering arts and entertainment. Actually, Nick doesn’t either, but he knows he has to stick with this gig until something better opens up.

“So tell me,” I demanded, after ordering a roasted veggie plate and iced tea from the server. She smiled at Nick the whole time I was talking to her, and she got my order wrong. Twice.

“Well, for starters, her name isn’t Chantel Carrington. It’s Carla Krasinski.” He waited a beat. “From Duluth.”

“She’s Carla Krasinski from Duluth?” My voice spiraled up a few decibels, and a man reading the
Economist
at the next table turned to glare at me. “That’s a hoot,” I said, reining in my amusement. “On her business card it lists Paris, London, and New York as her residences.”

“I think it also says she’s an oracle,” Nick said thoughtfully. “She sent along one of her cards with a press packet on her new book. So she fudges the truth a little.”

“Some oracle.” I snorted. “She only has one shtick. She predicts dark and dangerous deeds, along with some evildoings.”

“Dark, dangerous, and evil?” Nick parroted.

“Yeah, she sounds like an ad for a Kevin Williamson flick.”

“And—”

“And what?” I picked through some lifeless lettuce on the platter, looking for a sliver of heirloom tomato or a bit of red-skinned onion. Maybe even a hot pepper or two. Nada. Nick was unbelievable; he really
had
eaten the whole thing.

“Maggie,” he said, leaning across the table, looking intently at me, “you know what happened shortly after she made these predictions.”

“Oh. Well.” I stopped to think. “Althea was murdered, if that’s what you mean.”

“Exactly.”

“Don’t be too impressed. Chantel says this sort of thing all the time. She’s bound to be right occasionally. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, you know.”

Nick shook his head. “You’re quoting Sigmund Freud again?”

“No. That was Dr. Phil.”

“Tell me what else you dug up on Chantel,” I said, eyeing the fat folder he’d plunked down onto the tabletop.

“There’s a lot here.” He glanced up abstractedly as the server put his Heineken down in front of him with a blinding smile. She’d already told us her name was Lori. Three times, actually. She was very pretty and made a big show of fiddling with the coaster, eyeing Nick like he was Robert Pattinson. She slapped my iced tea in front of me with no fanfare at all and hightailed it back to the kitchen.

“She’s been on the move her whole life, never really settling down anywhere.”

I nodded. “Interesting.” I sipped my iced tea and wondered whether I dared try to flag Lori down and ask for a slice of lemon. “Where has she lived?”

Nick put on his reading glasses to scan the sheaf of papers. The rimless glasses gave him a “hot young professor” look, and I couldn’t resist a grin. “San Diego, San Francisco, New York, Montreal, New Orleans. She’s bounced back and forth all over the place. And she must be smart, because she didn’t leave much of a paper trail. Smart and very cunning, a dangerous combination. Sometimes she didn’t even seem to have an address, so I assume she stayed with friends in the area. Also no credit card history. She must have used cash or maybe mooched meals off people.”

I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around what Nick was telling me. “I don’t get it. Those are expensive cities. Even if she was invited out to dinner a lot, she must have had some source of income. How did she support herself?”

“The séances, I guess. Don’t forget she’s been doing them for a long time. It’s only in the past year or so that she’s actually gotten these book deals, and that’s what gave her a platform. The séances, the books, the personal appearances—they all work together; they drive each other. I’m pretty sure she was scrounging for years and years before her career took off.” He held up a newspaper clipping. “This appeared in the arts and entertainment section of the
Dallas Morning News
twenty years ago. So it predates the Internet. Chantel was giving séances for wealthy Dallas women in their homes and it made the society column. Someone faxed it to me, or I never would have had access to it.”

Predates the Internet
.
Never would have had access to it.
Yowsers. I suddenly remembered what Mildred had said on my show today. It was time to shift gears. “Nick, forget about Chantel for a moment. There’s something else I need to tell you.”

He patted the folder and pretended to look aggrieved. “Forget about her—you’re kidding, right? After all my hard work?”

“I think I’m on the wrong track. I heard something today that was disturbing, and I don’t know what to make of it. At least—” I paused, my mind whirring, adrenaline pumping. “Tell me if I’m on to something here.”

My thoughts were coming so fast, the words were tumbling out over one another like popcorn kernels in a popper. I quickly filled him in on what Mildred had said about the courthouse burning down and the newspaper offices being destroyed in a fire, all those years ago. “She said that tons of records, decades of history, have disappeared. They’re gone, vanished forever. The only way to reconstruct them would be to search birth and death registers at the local churches. Or maybe check family Bibles, that sort of thing. It would be a huge undertaking. Some really important information would stay buried forever.”

He nodded, as if this was old news to him. “It’s true. A big chunk of Cypress Grove history is gone. That’s probably why there’s so much interest in the time capsule celebration. We’re running a three-page spread in the weekend edition.”

Like WYME, the
Cypress Grove Gazette
had been promoting the time capsule ceremony every chance it got. The mayor was scheduled to attend, along with all the local politicians, and the movers and shakers. And of course, the media would be out in full force. With any luck, some of the bigger regional newspapers, like the Fort Lauderdale
Sun Sentinel
and the
Palm Beach Post
, might be there, too.

“But I think there’s more to it than that,” I said. “Mildred hinted that there’s some big secret involved with the contents of the time capsule. Something that goes way beyond historical interest.”