Ghostly Graveyard (Zoe Donovan Cozy Mystery Book 17) (2 page)

Duncan swatted me on the butt. “Sorry, kid; I’ve got plans later, so I guess you’re up.”

“I’m not a kid and I don’t appreciate the slap on the butt,” I replied.

“Don’t be such a whiner,” Duncan instructed. “You signed up to help, so help. I’m a busy man and I don’t have time to babysit complainers like you. Now either get your perky little backside over to the pie toss or go home. I have a Hamlet to run.”

I wanted to scream. I actually wanted to throw myself onto the ground and kick and scream, but that would only have lent legitimacy to his kid comment.

“What was that all about?” my good friend Levi Denton asked after Duncan walked away.

Levi is the third member of the Zoe-Ellie-Levi triad. We’d been best friends since kindergarten and I predicted we’d still be best friends when we were old and gray.

“Did you hear what he said?” I asked.

“Part of it,” Levi admitted.

“The nerve of the guy,” I shouted, louder than was socially appropriate. “He shows up in
my
town and joins
my
committee and then walks right into
my
event and takes over
my
job. The man needs to be brought down a peg. No one talks to Zoe Donovan Zimmerman that way and lives to tell about it.”

Levi took my arm and pulled me to the side. “Maybe you should bring it down a notch.”

I looked around. There were a couple of dozen people staring at me.

“Yeah, I guess maybe I should.” I took a deep breath and took a step away.

“Where are you headed?” Levi asked.

“To have a pie or maybe a couple dozen pies thrown in my face.”

“I’ll cover for you at the graveyard if you want to run home and take a shower when you’re done,” Levi offered.

“Thanks. I’ll take you up on that.”

I walked down Main Street toward the park where the pie toss was set up. The more I thought about the way Duncan was steamrolling everyone the madder I got. He was new in town. If he wanted to help out he should take a backseat to those of us with more experience with this event. I was the chairperson, so I should be the one making the decisions. Besides, I really didn’t want to get pies tossed in my face. Maybe I could just buy all the pies so there wouldn’t be any to toss at me. The committee would get their money and I would avoid whipped cream up the nose. I smiled. There were times having a rich husband came in handy.

Of course as luck would have it, there was a long line of snot-nosed adolescents waiting who weren’t at all supportive of my plan. I put the rubber apron around my body and took my position behind the barrier. I glared at the first sixth grader as he lifted his pie plate into the air.

“I’ll give you twenty dollars to miss,” I tried.

The kid smiled an evil little grin and let the plate fly.

I closed my eyes and prayed the pie would land harmlessly on the ground in front of me.

It didn’t.

The next kid in line couldn’t be more than five. I doubted she would be able to do the damage the older child had been able to inflict. I actually began to relax when pie number two hit me smack dab in the middle of the face.

I cleared the whipped cream from my eyes and looked toward the sound of deep laughter. I couldn’t help but notice the very satisfied glance Duncan Wright sent in my direction. There was no doubt about it: The man had set me up, and before the night was over Zoe Donovan was going to enact her revenge.

It was a perfect night for the kickoff of the Haunted Hamlet festivities. The air was calm and moderately warm considering the time of year. The golden leaves that hung from the aspen trees glistened as they reflected off the white twinkle lights we’d strung everywhere. This year the haunted house was to be held in an abandoned building just outside of town. The deserted residence we’d chosen to use for the event was located next to the old Devil’s Den cemetery.

The cemetery hadn’t been used in almost a century. After Ashton Montgomery redeveloped the area, he’d built a new cemetery up on the hill, and the land where the miners and their families were buried had fallen into a state of decay. A lot of the tombstones were still there, but many of the markers, which consisted of little more than two sticks nailed together, had long since vanished.

Our plan for the event was to have parking in the vacant field on the far side of the cemetery. Visitors would then be led by the “ghost” of Isaac Wainwright through the cemetery toward the house, which had been decorated to frighten even the bravest souls among us. The haunted house was an event that was designed to appeal to older teens and adults, so the first tours hadn’t been scheduled until after dark, giving the atmosphere an extraspooky feel.

“Boo!” someone shouted behind me.

I jumped and screamed as I stepped out of my car.

“You almost gave me a heart attack,” I complained to Levi.

“It’s Halloween. You should expect to be scared.”

“Maybe in the house or even in the graveyard, but not in the parking lot. Where’s Ellie?”

“She’s not going to make it,” Levi told me.

I frowned. “Really? I just spoke to her this afternoon and she said she was going to show after she finished at the pumpkin patch.”

“She got a call and had to go out of town at the last minute.”

“What happened?”

“Do you remember her cousin Skye?”

“Vaguely.” Skye was Ellie’s mother’s sister’s daughter. She was a couple of years older than Ellie and the two weren’t superclose, but Skye had visited Ashton Falls a few times when we were growing up.

“Well, she was in a car accident. A bad one.”

“Oh, no. Is she going to be okay?”

“Ellie said they really don’t know. Skye is stable but still unconscious. I guess at this point it could go either way.”

Poor Ellie. Skye lived in a small town about four hours away from Ashton Falls. Ellie was most likely still on the road if she was headed to the hospital. I knew Skye’s parents had both passed during the last couple of years, so even though Ellie hadn’t seen Skye in a while, I suppose she might be her closest relative next to Ellie’s mom, Rosie.

“Did Ellie share her plans?” I asked.

“She was going to pick up the baby and then head back.”

“The baby?”

“Apparently Skye had a baby since Ellie last spoke to her. Skye’s roommate called to ask Ellie if she could keep the baby until Skye recovers. Ellie said she didn’t even know the baby existed, but of course she was happy to help out.”

I watched as a dark cloud moved across the moon, casting the parking area into darkness. I felt like the cloud had appeared in the clear sky as some sort of an omen. But then again, it could just have drifted in over the summit when I wasn’t looking.

“How old is the baby?” I wondered.

“Six months. According to the roommate the father is a drifter Skye hadn’t spoken to since the night Mariah was conceived. He’s totally out of the picture, and as far as Ellie could tell, Skye hadn’t maintained contact with her extended family after her parents passed.”

I felt a sadness surround me. “I hope Skye is okay. I only met her a couple of times, but I remember her being a nice girl. And the poor baby. Babies need their mamas.”

“Yeah.” Levi sighed. “It really is a bad situation. Did Zak make it back?”

I closed my door and opened the trunk of the small car Zak had bought me to tool around town in. I began to sort through the pile of objects I’d begun carrying around since I’d become a mom of sorts.

“Yeah, he’s back,” I answered as I began to gather the things I would need for the evening. “Pi is going to hang out with Jeremy after he finishes his shift at the Zoo, so Zak was going to drop him off with him and then head home to check on the animals and make sure Scooter and Alex were settled at my parents’. He should be here before long.”

I smiled as I found the pair of cleats Scooter had sworn someone must have stolen because he was unable to find them. I really did need to clean out my trunk. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and began to walk across the parking lot toward the trail that led from the parking lot and through the graveyard to the house.

“Fair warning,” Levi said as he fell in next to me. “I really didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, and was waiting until the last possible moment to do so, but someone broke in and trashed the place.”

“What? Who would do such a thing?”

“Benny said he saw Duncan here earlier, so my money is on him being the culprit.”

I stopped walking and looked directly at Levi. “Why would Duncan trash the place?”

“I don’t know. When I arrived and saw the mess I asked Benny what happened and he said he didn’t know for sure, but he’d been here earlier to check on the sound system and Duncan showed up while he was here. He said he left shortly after Duncan arrived because he needed to do some things before he came back for the evening, and Duncan agreed to lock up. My guess is either Duncan did the trashing or he forgot to lock up and vandals took advantage of that fact.”

“Maybe someone broke in after Duncan left,” I said.

“Maybe,” Levi acknowledged. “But even if that’s true he left the door open. I looked around. There’s no sign of a forced entry.”

I looked toward the house. The haunted house and haunted graveyard were my babies. I’d been working on them for months. I couldn’t believe someone would trash the place after all my hard work.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“Bad.”

I let out a long breath and shook my head. I couldn’t believe Duncan would do such a thing, but my intuition told me that he had. I felt myself getting madder and madder as I walked toward the house. What could the man who seemed to have made it his mission to annoy and irritate me possibly hope to gain by destroying the event I’d spent weeks working on? Maybe it wasn’t as bad as Levi indicated.

Once I stepped inside I realized Levi hadn’t been exaggerating at all. The place looked like a war zone. There were some props lying on the floor, while others had been broken beyond repair. It looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to the place. And the worst part was that someone had spread red paint all over one wall and part of the floor. It was going to take a miracle to get it out of the area rug that was on the floor in the center of the room.

“There’s paint in the kitchen as well,” Levi informed me.

“Great.”

“I’m going to go see if I can round up some more help,” Levi said.

“What happened?” Sue Stone, one of the mothers from Scooter’s soccer team, asked as she came in through the door behind me after Levi had walked away.

“I really have no idea. It looks like someone intentionally trashed the place.”

“Who would do such a thing?” Sue asked.

“Benny said he saw Duncan here earlier, which led Levi to suspect Duncan was our vandal, but I don’t see how he could be because he was at the kiddie carnival selling tickets all afternoon.”

“No,” Sue corrected, “
I
spent the afternoon at the kiddie carnival selling tickets. Someone was supposed to relieve me, but no one ever showed, so I did a double shift.”

I frowned. “That’s odd. I was supposed to relieve you, but I ran into Duncan, who sent me to the pie toss. He said he was going to cover the ticket booth.”

“Well, he didn’t,” Sue confirmed.

It was beginning to sound like Duncan was the culprit after all. But why would he spend hours volunteering with the events committee and then intentionally destroy any chance we had of making a profit?

“It looks like a line is beginning to form out front. We should probably tell everyone they’ll need to come back tomorrow,” Sue suggested. “I hate to spread the word that the house has been vandalized, though. I’m afraid that might open a whole can of worms. Maybe we can tell everyone we had a problem with the electricity. This is an old house. Most folks will buy it.”

“That sounds like a good idea. Why don’t you go break the news to the people in line and I’ll start cleaning up?”

Luckily, we had a fairly large staff lined up to man the event that evening and most were happy to stay to clean up when they found out the event was canceled. I wasn’t thrilled by what had occurred, but it looked like it was going to be possible to put everything back the way it had been so we would be able to resume operations the following evening.

“Hey, Bruce, can you oversee the graveyard tomorrow night?” I asked one of the helpers who had finished what he’d been assigned to do and was getting ready to leave.

“I thought you had someone for tomorrow.”

“I did, but the
someone
I had was Duncan, and because I’m going to kill him once I track him down, I figure I’ll need to replace the shift.”

Bruce laughed. “I hear ya. I’ll be happy to fill in.”

I looked around the room. It seemed we would be finished in half the time I’d originally estimated it would take us.

“Ellie called,” Levi informed me after Bruce left. “She’s on her way home with the baby and wanted me to stop to pick up some stuff.”

“Did she say how Skye was doing?” I asked.

“The same. Ellie is pretty worried. She said it really doesn’t look good.”

“Is there anything Zak and I can do?”

“Actually, there is something Zak can do. I guess your mom is going to lend Ellie an extra crib she has, and she said she had a stroller and a couple of other things as well. I don’t think it will all fit in my 4Runner, but maybe if Zak could follow me in his truck…”

“No problem. I’m sure he’d be happy to help. Is there anything else we can do?”

“Not really. At least not at this point. Once she gets home we’ll have some things to figure out, but it seems like for now she just really wants to get the baby settled into the boathouse.”

“Of course. You and Zak go on ahead. I can finish up here. And don’t worry about tomorrow. I’ll find someone to cover for both you and Ellie.”

“Thanks. That would help.”

“And please call if you think of anything at all you need.”

“I will.”

I watched Levi walk across the room to speak to Zak. I couldn’t help but wonder at the fate of the baby should her mother not recover. It was such a tragic thing to have occurred. It made my irritation with Duncan somehow seem petty and unimportant.

“Is there anything else I can do?” Sue asked when Levi and Zak had left.

“No, I think we’re good. As soon as the guys finish fixing the sound system, I’m going to do a walk-through and then lock up for the night. Thanks again for all your help. The cleanup went a lot faster than I thought it would. As long as we can keep Duncan out of the place we should be good to open tomorrow.”

“It really is a shame. I’m willing to bet the revenue from tonight’s haunted house would have been the largest of the weekend, with it being opening night and all.”

Sue had a point. Opening night was always the biggest one.

“It does seem like Duncan is intentionally trying to sabotage things.”

“What do you really know about this guy?” Sue asked. “I heard some of the others talking about him, so I know he’s new in town and that he jumped right in and took over at the events committee meetings.”

“Honestly, I don’t know a whole lot,” I answered. “The guy showed up at a meeting three weeks ago and said he wanted to be involved. He told the committee he had a lot of experience organizing events and wanted to put his knowledge to work to help out his new hometown. He seemed sincere, and although the plans for the Hamlet were pretty much set by that point, he offered a few suggestions that seemed to make sense. Initially, he seemed to be a team player who was only trying to help, and his initial suggestions were really minor alterations that could easily be accommodated, so we ended up voting to incorporate a few of his ideas into our plans.”

“So I’m going to go ahead and speculate that once he got a foot in the door he dug in and took over entirely.”

“Pretty much.” I nodded. “He was actually pretty sneaky about it. He started out small and then made bigger and bigger changes. Most of the things, like the story time and the addition of several games like the pie-throwing contest were discussed and voted on. A few others like the addition of the dunk tank he introduced without anyone knowing what he was doing until he did it.”

Sue frowned. “What I don’t get is why he went to all that trouble. He must be busy getting settled into a new job and a new home. Why would he decide to get so involved in a fund-raiser that was just around the corner?”