Corpses & Conmen (Rosewood Place Mysteries Book 2) (17 page)

“I think you’re probably not the only one who’ll feel that way,” Annie confided, “but I wanted to invite everyone.”

He laughed. “Can you believe my wife buys into all that stuff? She and your mom even swapped some recipes with that hooey-phooey psychic. Doris says she’s going to start making her own beauty creams thanks to Marie. I guess I should thank her for that,” he added. “It’ll save me a fortune.”

Annie looked baffled. “What kind of recipes did Marie give you, Mother?”

“Oh, they’re not really recipes,” Bessie replied, “are they Doris? I’m not sure what you’d call them. It’s more like blends--essential oils, that sort of thing.”

“Lavender, peppermint oil, that sort of thing,” Doris confirmed. “You know, you can use almost any kinds of oils for blending,” she told her husband, who showed his disinterest by faking a yawn and pretending to fall asleep.

Bessie held her hand out to Annie, inviting her to touch it. “I made some hand cream using some of her advice,” she said. “Feel how soft it made my hands.”

Annie agreed that her mother’s hands were soft. She sniffed them, breathing in a blend of fragrances. “Mmm, is that lavender and roses?”

“Smells good, doesn’t it?” Bessie asked. “Marie gave me a list of all kinds of oils I can use and the things I can treat with them,” she added. “She even let me try some of her own blends,” she continued.

Annie realized that this was probably why she smelled such strange aromas whenever Marie was around. The woman was probably drowning in all the essential oils and incense fumes.

“Well, I’m going to leave you guys to your house-hunting. I’m going to let the other guests know about dinner and see if Marie needs anything for her, um, well, I’ll just see if she needs anything.”

Annie left the sitting room and its guests and made a beeline for the dining room. She hoped that Marie wouldn’t do anything crazy like insist on lighting a hundred candles or burning a dozen sticks of incense in there. She didn’t find Marie in the room, but she did find that the dining table had been carefully covered with an old tablecloth. There were candles, but not a hundred of them. Instead, three large pillar candles lined the center of the table. They were unlit but looked as though they’d been used many times before.

Annie was surprised at how simple the setup for a seance seemed to be. She wondered whether Marie would have other requirements or bring out anything else when the actual process began. A sound behind her in the hallway made Annie jump.

“Did you bring me the package?” Marie asked in a quiet, calm voice.

“Oh, Marie, I didn’t hear you,” Annie replied. “I don’t have it with me, but I’ll bring it when it’s time for the--well, when everybody comes in here and sits down.”

Marie smiled, but it wasn’t a friendly smile. Instead, it looked slightly vacant, like the psychic had already begun reaching out and communicating with the spirits. She didn’t seem to be quite wholly on the same plane, let alone planet, as Annie. “Everyone?”

“I invited our other guests to join in. I hope you don’t mind, but they want to help Mr. Ross as much as you do,” she lied.

Marie blinked. “The more, the merrier,” she replied. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in my room until the ceremony begins. I need to rest; it’s very tiring communicating with the dead.”

She was gone before Annie could formulate a response. Annie pulled the door to the dining room closed behind her as she left the room, then she went upstairs to try and find her remaining guests. She had a feeling that Rob would want to be present during the seance, but she genuinely had no idea how Mr. George would react to the whole thing.

As she wandered through the halls of her home, Annie hoped and prayed that the evening’s activities would prove productive. If her theory was right, she could lure out Lou’s killer and help the police make an arrest. Of course, if her plan didn’t work, she’d have to spend at least one more night sleeping under the same roof as a cold-blooded killer.

The weather was perfect for outdoor cooking. It was, Annie believed, even nicer than the first day that her guests had arrived. That felt like a lifetime ago, despite the fact that it wasn’t even a full week. Still, when the days were filled with dead bodies, unexplained fires, and dramatic illnesses--all of which seemed to relate directly to her guests--Annie began to second-guess her choice of careers.

If running a bed-and-breakfast is going to be this exciting
, she mused,
maybe I ought to raise our rates
.

Rory returned from the store with everything Annie had requested, plus a few items Devon had insisted that his mom wouldn’t mind him buying. Annie glanced at the receipt. “What’s this fifteen dollar gift card?” she asked.

“I needed some new apps?” Devon shrugged, then added, “But they’re for school, so it’s all good.”

Annie doubted that this was completely true, but she decided to let it slide this one time. She realized with a start that her son would be starting school in a little over a week and she hadn’t even had time to read over the school handbook. In New York, Devon’s school had a uniform. Here in Coopersville, uniforms were unheard of, but she was pretty sure that the dress code had changed since her days at school.

“Devon, remind me to double-check your school supply list this weekend. I want to make sure you have everything you need before they pull all the school supplies from the store shelves and put the Christmas decorations up,” she grumbled. “Hey, that reminds me, did you get a box of school supplies out of my office?”

Devon made a face. “Ugh. Why would I do that? I don’t want to think about school at all until you drag me kicking and screaming through the front doors of the high school, thank you very much.”

Annie shook her head. “I must have just put it somewhere and forgotten about it. I guess it will turn up,” she added. “Why don’t you put Karma out in the barn while we cook and eat? If you wash your hands, you can help Rory cook,” she added.

Devon thought this over for just a moment. “Can Karma have a burger?”

Annie closed the refrigerator, where she’d just stashed the large tub of coleslaw that she’d had Rory pick up from the store. “Okay, but no bun. And only after all the guests have eaten,” she added.

“And only if you give TigerLily some, too,” Bessie said, breezing into the kitchen. She grinned at her grandson. “You wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings, would you?”

Devon smiled back at her. “I know better than to upset the women in this family,” he teased. “I’ll go put the dog out and see if Rory needs any help firing up the grill.”

As Devon left, Annie turned to her mother. “I think the guests seem to be pleased about the cookout. The weather’s holding out for us, Rory’s working his magic on the grill, and nobody seemed to be too upset by the idea of a seance,” she said with a hint of hopefulness in her voice.

“Rory’s not interested in being a part of the seance, I take it?”

Annie laughed. “No. And Frank’s not interested, neither is Mr. George, but surprisingly, everyone else wants to do it.”

Bessie nodded. “I could have told you that Alexander George wouldn’t be interested. He’s a man who only likes facts, I think. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you, but I like to keep my mind open to all possibilities,” she said.

Annie couldn’t help but think that her mother liked to do more than just ‘keep open to possibilities,’ but she kept this opinion to herself. Let her mom believe in supernatural things, if she liked. As long as there was no harm in it, the woman deserved to have a little fun.

They finished putting away the various items of shopping, then Annie watched as her mother went through the process of making a gallon of sweet iced tea. As the teabags were brewing on the stove, Annie’s phone rang in her pocket. Emmett’s number filled the screen.

“Hello?” Annie knew that her mother would want to talk to Emmett if she knew who was on the other end of the line.

“I’ve had an idea,” he replied, not bothering with a greeting. “Go check your fax machine. I’m sending a copy of the photo on Lou Ross’s driver’s license. I thought it might shake things up a little if you set it out during your mystical woo-woo session,” he added, barely disguising a chuckle.

“You think it might make the killer a little uncomfortable, make it easier to tell who killed him?” she guessed.

“Maybe. Can’t hurt. I’m sending a couple of cars up your way, by the way. They won’t come to your place, but they’ll be close, just in case.”

Annie hoped he wasn’t sending Delbert Plemmons. If it came down to Delbert catching the bad guy, she had a feeling that they would be sadly disappointed. He was a nice enough young man, but as far as police officers went, Annie felt Delbert was lacking most of the skills needed to do the job, like agility, attention-span, and a sense of direction.

“If you send Delbert Plemmons, please give him a partner who knows left from right,” Annie teased.

“Ooh, is that Emmett?”

Annie realized that she’d given the game away by mentioning Delbert. “Yes, Mama, it’s Emmett.”

“Tell him I’m cooking fried chicken on Sunday,” she said, hollering it loud enough for the man to hear on the other end of the phone.

“You heard that, right?” Annie asked.

Emmett chuckled, a sound like a cross between Santa Claus and Elmo from Sesame Street. “You tell your mama I’ll be there with my eating pants on,” he confirmed. “Annie, you be careful tonight.” His tone changed so quickly, it threw Annie off-balance. “I don’t want you trying to play hero, trying to stop any suspects. You just need to let me know who looks guilty and I’ll have my boys swoop in and take care of the rest.”

Annie thought his concern was sweet, but she also thought it was a little sexist. “I’ll be fine, Emmett. You just make sure that Delbert doesn’t trip over his shoelaces if he has to chase anybody, okay?”

With Sunday’s dinner invitation confirmed and Annie notified about the police officers who’d be nearby, they ended the call with a promise that Annie would call Emmett if she had any reservations about the unusual plan. As soon as she’d ended the call, Annie headed for her office to retrieve the promised fax. She had a feeling that Emmett was right about the photo. After all, if you’d just murdered someone in cold blood, it had to be pretty disconcerting to have to look at the person while you tried to contact their ghost.

The photo from Lou’s driver’s license looked nothing like the man she’d pictured in her head. Although Annie had been the one to find his body, she’d never actually looked at Lou’s face when the police and fire department pulled him out of the pond. Emmett had spared her from that gory job and she was grateful, but it kept Lou from feeling like a real person to her. Now, staring at his face looking back at her from the blurry black and white photo, she felt a twinge of sadness.

Here was someone’s child, albeit a child who preyed on the insecurity and fear of others for financial gain. He looked so
ordinary
. Annie shuddered to think that Lou was the type of guy she would have overlooked if she’d met him out somewhere. He had the sort of mildly attractive, completely generic face that she reckoned all conmen should have, which is to say, he was wholly unremarkable.

Annie wondered what drove the man to his profession. Did he indeed have a mother in Mobile, waiting for a call from her son that would never come? Annie put that thought firmly out of her head. If Lou Ross had a mother, then Emmett would find her, and Annie didn’t need to worry about a grieving stranger right then.

She checked the time on her phone and realized that Rory probably had the grill fired up by now. It would take a little while for the charcoal to hit just the right temperature, so she still had time to help her mother prepare the rest of the food for the dinner that she’d come to think of as a sort of ‘going away’ celebration. It was almost impossible to believe that the first week of business had almost finished. It seemed like only five minutes ago that she’d been painting, scrubbing, and helping Rory piece the place back together after years of neglect.

Annie looked around her as she left her office and headed for the kitchen. She fell in love with the old house a little more every day and couldn’t imagine ever leaving it. She hoped her guests felt that way, too. Well, maybe she didn’t want them to love it so much that they’d never leave, but she hoped that she’d created a wonderful enough place that they’d be tempted to return time and time again.

Annie could hear her mother’s laughter ringing out from the kitchen before she ever set foot in the room, followed by Frank’s booming voice and Doris’s high-pitched squeal.

“And that was when I told them I was through,” Frank laughed, wiping tears from the corner of his eyes. “Man, let me tell you, I will not miss having a full-time job, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised how quickly being retired gets boring,” Bessie replied. “Mind you, I didn’t work full-time, anyways. Never had to, thanks to my Robert, but I still wanted to get out there and feel useful. I volunteered at the church for many years until he passed away, and then I guess I sort of shut myself off from all that.” She sighed, “I love working at this place, though. Wouldn’t trade it for the world, plus I have my Annie and Devon here with me. Couldn’t ask for more,” she finished.

Annie hadn’t realized how isolated Bessie had been before she’d moved back home. Her mother had always given her the impression that her life was busy, but Annie supposed that she’d just been trying to alleviate Annie’s guilt over not visiting more often.

“Mama,” she said, making her presence known. “I just came to see if you need any help with the food.”

“Oh, no, dear, I’ve got it all under control. Frank here was just telling me about his job. I do believe he’s happy to be retiring,” she added, and the trio burst into fresh laughter. Annie felt as though she’d missed the joke completely, so she just smiled dumbly.

“What’s that?” Doris asked, wiping her eyes gently and pointing to the photo in Annie’s hands.

“Oh, I thought that I’d put it out during the
seance
,” she replied, still not wholly comfortable with the word. “It’s a photo of Lou Ross,” she explained.

“Oh,” Doris let out a small gasp. “Can I see it?”

Annie passed Doris the sheet of paper and watched her carefully to gauge her reaction. It wasn’t what she expected at all.

“Oh, such a shame,” she clucked, “Look, Frank. Look how young he seems.”

Frank took the image and nodded silently. He stared at Lou’s face for a long minute, then passed the paper back to Annie.

“I just don’t get it,” he said finally. “That guy, he looks like a nice guy. Why would he go and con people out of their money? What’s wrong with people?” He shook his head. “And who knows what the freak looks like who killed him.”

“Well, it could look just like one of us,” Doris reminded him. She put a hand on Annie’s arm. “Thank you for showing this to us. It’s so easy to forget that this dead man was someone’s son, maybe someone’s husband or brother. Regardless of what he did before he came here, he certainly didn’t deserve to end up the way he did.”

Frank agreed. “I know I ran my mouth off the other day, saying that he got what he deserved, but Doris is right. Nobody deserves that.”

Annie looked at her mother, who had an I-told-you-so look on her face. If she’d ever doubted the Martin's innocence, you certainly couldn’t tell.

The mood had changed completely in the cozy kitchen. Annie felt both relief that Frank and Doris seemed to have dropped off her suspect list and regret for having interrupted their vivacious laughter.

“I guess I’ll go and check on Rory and Devon, see if they need anything.”

Annie left them to get back to their chatter and headed outside. The scent of charcoal and lighter fluid made her feel both hungry and anxious. After the fire on the deck, Annie didn’t think she’d ever feel the same about lighter fluid ever again.

Annie was surprised to find Alexander George sitting with Rory and Devon, a bottle of root beer in his hand and a smile on his face.

“Hullo, Annie! Did you come out here to make sure we weren’t getting into any mischief?” her bespectacled guest asked.

Annie smiled back at him and made her way over to where the three of them were sitting in deck chairs beneath the shade of a large oak tree. “I can’t see you three getting into any mischief,” she replied, fanning drifting smoke out of her eyes. “I just thought I’d see if you needed anything,” she said to Rory. “And I wanted to let you know that Emmett sent something over,” she added, holding up the photo of Lou.

Devon was the first to ask about it. “Who’s that?”

Annie explained about the photo, leaving out the part about using it to lure out Lou’s killer. Alexander looked very uncomfortable when Annie offered him the photo. He took it with slightly trembling hands.

“This is the dead man?” he asked. “He was a bad man?”

His question surprised Annie. “Well, I suppose you could say that. The police think he stole money from many people.” She glanced at Rory, who was studying Alexander’s reaction to the photo very carefully.

Alexander’s mouth made a firm line. He handed the image back to Annie. “I don’t like looking at pictures of dead people, even bad ones. Does that mean that the person who killed him is a good person?” he asked earnestly.

Annie could see the confusion in Alexander’s eyes. She also felt exceedingly uncomfortable with his last question. “Well, no, Mr. George, of course not. Killing is bad, regardless of what the dead person did before they died.”

“If the killer is a bad person, why haven’t they been caught?” He looked from Annie to Rory. “Do you think they’ll kill someone else?”

Rory spoke up. “I’m sure that the police will stop them before that can happen, Alexander.” He took the photo from the man’s hands and passed it back to Annie. “Let’s let Annie put this in the house so it doesn’t get ruined.”

Alexander didn’t protest, he simply handed the photo to Rory and took a sip of his root beer. “I’m starving,” he said randomly. “I can’t wait for dinner.”

Rory walked a few steps away from Devon and Alexander, motioning for Annie to walk with him.