The Gallery of the Dead (Tropical Breeze Cozy Mystery Book 3) (7 page)

“Why?”

“Well, because this is an investigation!”

“Yes. Well. Did Rita remember Misty at all?”

“Vaguely. In fact, I think she was thinking of another girl altogether. She said something about red hair, and Misty’s has always been that mousy brown. I explained who I was, but I’m not sure she figured that out, either, but when I mentioned Tropical Breeze, she brightened right up and talked to me for quite a while. She was
fascinated
that you were doing a reality show in the house. Lots of good memories. Lots of good times.” She gave a happy little sigh.

“Did she have any paranormal experiences in the house?”

“I didn’t ask.”

I remained calm. After all, the dear lady was only trying to help. If I had time, I would call the Allen woman myself. “Did you manage to find out anything relevant?”

“I just
told
you! Anyway, be sure to remember – it’s sleep-over, not pajama party, or whatever you thought it was.”

“I’ll make a note of it.”

“Be sure you do. You don’t want to sound dated on TV.”

“We won’t be discussing the pajama – the slumber parties.”

“
Sleep
-overs. Really, Ed! Are you even writing this down?”

“I can’t. I’m driving. But I will remember.”

“Never mind. I’ll send you a text. You can look at it when you get home.”

“You’re very kind.”

“Not at all. Be sure and tell Teddy I helped with the investigation.”

“Will do.”

I finished transcribing my notes at 2:37, and ran off seven copies to bring to the meeting in the morning.

The second draft of the manuscript on my last investigation lay on the desk. It was so close to being publishable – just one more draft and a final polish was all it needed. But I had to get some sleep; I needed to be sharp for the on-camera investigation, which would probably be wrapping up in just about 14 hours. I gave my manuscript a wistful look, then forced myself out of the office.

I set up coffee to brew in five hours, then set my cell phone alarm for 7:45 am. The meeting at The Royal Palm was set for 9:00 in the morning.

I couldn’t sleep. I’m a perfectionist, and I couldn’t get over the fact that I hadn’t thought of going to the Tropical Breeze Historical Society.

From the shorthand notes of Bernie Horning, Editor-in-Chief,
The Beach Buzz

I arrived at Whitby House at 8:45 in the morning, April 10, the much anticipated 100
th
anniversary of Cassandra Whitby’s death in 1915.

I had decided to wear my old-lady outfit, (an old cotton print dress, chunky-cheapie earrings, a big sparkly poodle brooch and orthopedic shoes), since nobody knew me but Ed, and people tend to discount old folks. If they were too cagey to talk in front of me, I’d pretend to fall asleep. Gets ‘em every time.

I surveyed myself in the mirror, decided I looked harmless enough, put a little lipstick on my front teeth and got over there early.

I had met that cute production assistant, Lily Parsons, over at Don’s Diner the night before. You couldn’t miss Lily in the diner. She was being toasted (with milkshakes) by half the town. Nice, frisky young woman; I liked her.

Ed looked startled when he saw me, then blurted his usual stray thought: “I’m sorry, I only made seven copies, so I won’t be able to give one to you.”

Not knowing what the heck he was talking about, I just said, “That’s all right, Ed. You can give a copy to me later.”

Begrudgingly, he made a note of it. What he does with all his notes I can’t imagine. He can’t possibly keep track of them all.

We had assembled in Misty’s dining room. She’d done it over in Victoriana. Edwardian would have been more appropriate, or even art deco, but that’s Misty. The walls were papered in a dark, striped pattern with overblown roses rising in columns, and the draperies were thickly gathered with heavy, scalloped valences. The long table was mahogany with a hand-crocheted runner going down the middle, and the chairs had blue striped seat cushions. Must have cost a fortune, just for this one room alone.

Misty had provided us with coffee and sweet rolls.

I helped myself to coffee, sat down near the foot of the table and started being inconspicuous. Teddy hadn’t arrived yet, but the place at the head was left open for him. One seat away from me, on what would be Teddy’s right, was Lily, who looked incredibly fresh and healthy, and greeted me like an old friend. The others I didn’t know yet.

Casual murmurs were percolating around when Ed walked in and we had the brief exchange I described. He went to the place across from Lily, set his satchel on the table, and took out a stack of papers. He put one set at Teddy’s place, then handed the rest across to Lily and asked her to pass them around. When she handed the stack to me, I helped myself to a copy, passed the rest on, then started to read. Keeping my awareness going in all directions, I noticed that Lily and I were the only ones who were interested in them. One of the men was just fanning himself with his copy.

It was headed, “
Haunt or Hoax?
Investigation No. 1: Suicides at Whitby House, a/k/a The Royal Palm.” It was pretty interesting, and I decided I would snaffle a copy when nobody was looking.

I was deep into it when Teddy made his entrance.

His black hair was wet and pushed straight back, with arty little points of hair pulled down over his forehead. He
is
handsome. He looked at me, grinned, and said, “Who’s this little lady?”

“I’m Bernie Horning. I’m the Editor-in-Chief of the local paper.”

“I see. And you’re doing an article on the show?”

I know when to pour on the banana oil. “Oh, my, yes! This is just the biggest thing to happen in Tropical Breeze ever! Since last fall, when you did your other investigation down the road at Cadbury House, anyway. My readers want to know all about it. And so do I!” People like Teddy want to hear exclamation points when you talk to them.

He nodded. “Well, you’re welcome, ah –“

“Bernie.”

“Bernie. You’re welcome to sit in for a while, meet the cast and crew and get a sense of the objective here, but when we get down to our plan of attack, I may have to ask you to leave. Many of our investigations are confidential.”

“Of course I understand,” I said meekly. Confidential my left elbow; he was about to splash it all over the TV. There wasn’t a chance in hell he’d throw me out and I knew it. People like Teddy Force cease to exist when nobody’s looking.

Ed, who knows me better, was watching with a jaundiced eye. I lifted an eyebrow, then ignored him.

At that moment Carmilla made her entrance and everybody froze.

Suddenly the room wasn’t big enough. She glared at us silently, standing in the doorway in 4-inch platform boots. She was dressed like a vampire biker babe, and in her utter stillness she projected a presence that put Teddy in the shade. In fact, he just about disappeared. I looked from Teddy to Carmilla and wondered how long it would be before she had a show of her own. Maybe Teddy’s.

“Welcome, Carmilla,” Teddy said. “Come on in, but be careful what you say. There’s a member of the Press in the room.”

He indicated me, and she sent a death ray at me with dark brown eyes. I’ve seen friendlier faces on sharks.

“This is Edson Darby-Deaver,” he said, gesturing toward Ed, who reared back when she hit him with the same laser-beam.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, rising to shake her hand, which she ignored. He fell back into his seat and began to shuffle papers.

“And my production assistant and fiancé, Lily Parsons.”

Ed and I both made noises of dismay. I thought Lily had better taste. I was careful not to look at Ed, afraid I would see something that would make me sad.

Teddy pointed to a rubbery-looking young man who’d been bouncing around in a corner by himself. “Jinx Fisher.”

Jinx bounded out to shake her hand, not having learned from Ed’s experience, and she towered over him, staring. “
What does he do
?” she said in a sepulchral voice that struck us all over again. I italicized it to convey the extreme depth and deadness of her voice. Take it from here that it never gained any life or inflection.

Jinx grinned with impossibly wide lips, danced back a step and lowered his hand. “I’m the psychic.”

“You’re kidding,” she intoned.

“He’ll be our comic relief,” Teddy said. “Things get pretty intense on an investigation. I thought it was a good idea.”

“A comic psychic?” Ed asked, looking pained.

“Sure. And this is Wayne Wyatt, our videographer, and Elliott Billington, sound.”

He pointed to two middle-aged men who had been hanging out together in a corner, conscious of the barrier between cast and crew, and in my opinion, not wanting to cross over.

“It’s Wyatt Wayne,” the guy with the dark ponytail said, “but I’ll answer to either.”

“Hi,” the other one said, making a little salute. He was sandy-haired and like Wyatt, was in saggy shorts and a tee shirt.

“I think that’s everybody,” Teddy said. “Shall we begin?”

There was a moment’s pause. Then Carmilla’s coffin voice said, “Is that all? A two-man crew?”

“The show is a run-and-shoot. We’ll be fast, mobile. If we need more support, we’ll fill in the gaps as we go along,” Teddy told her.

“I’ve had bigger crews at children’s parties,” she said, taking the chair at the foot of the table, adjacent to me, and glaring at the curtains.

Edson blinked owlishly. “You do children’s parties?”

She whipped a forceful stare at him, and he subsided. He fiddled around in his bag of tricks and came out with a voice recorder, which he started, then set on the table.

“This is Day One,
Haunt or Hoax?
production meeting on the investigation of a haunting at The Royal Palm,” he dictated.

“Or as we like to call it,” Jinx said, “The Royal Pain.”

The crew snickered; Ed glared, then he recited the names of those present, the date and exact time of day. “Proceed.”

Carmilla stared down the table and intoned, “
Never
call a meeting this early again. I sleep in the day and walk the night.”

“Which reminds me,” Teddy said brightly, “everybody spent the night in the house except for Edson, here. Were there any incidents? Vibrations? Anyone experience anything unusual during the night?” He looked around hopefully.

“I felt a presence in my room,” Jinx said.

“
Really?
” Teddy said.

“Yeah. The presence of a bathroom. But it was only a
phantom
bathroom, because when I woke up, I had to go down the hall in the middle of the night to take a leak. All the other rooms have johns.”

“You got a balcony,” Teddy said shortly.

“That’s not a balcony, it’s a fire escape,” Jinx said. “When the homicidal maniac breaks in that way, I’ll just go ahead and get myself killed first while you guys go for help.”

“Be sure and scream nice and loud, now,” Wyatt said with a grin. “We’re very sound sleepers. Come on, stop whining. At least you got a room to yourself. Elliott and I are bunking together, and it ain’t twin beds. There’s barely room for our equipment in that room.”

“Please,” said the official voice from the tomb. All eyes turned to Carmilla. “We are a small company, but can we not at least
act
like professionals?” She glared. I found myself staring at her. There was just no excuse for that wig. It sat on her head like a dead spider. Half her face was hidden by it, and the back streamed all the way down to her waist. Other than the wig, she was wearing black leather, but not much of it: a patch here, a thong there, and a kind of black mesh connecting it. Vampire trash.

“Thank you, Carmilla,” Teddy said. Then he turned to the papers in front of him. “Before we get started, I’d like to make a few remarks about our goals for the new show. A mission statement, if you will. You’re all familiar with my work on
The Realm of the Shadows
, of course, and you know the various roles filled by my co-stars. We had the mix of personalities you find in the average, ordinary reality show, with a touch or two of created drama. For the new show,
Haunt or Hoax?
, we intend to take things to a higher plane. We’ll be taking a more serious, scientific approach. Ed, here, will be our researcher, and our focus will be to prove or disprove paranormal events, letting the chips fall where they may. No manufactured storyline, no manufactured ghosts.”

Ed looked at his new co-stars and abandoned hope. Carmilla looked like something out of a bad dream, and Jinx looked like a tumble monkey from a carnival sideshow.

Suddenly Carmilla intoned, “I know you.” She was staring at Jinx.

“Who, me?” he said.

“You. You were in the newspapers about six months ago.”

“You read newspapers?” he asked with wide-open eyes.

I was interested myself. I’m in the newspaper business. If he was big news a little while ago, I should remember him. It hit me about the time Carmilla launched into the story.

“That fall from the trapeze at the circus,” she said, relishing Jinx’s discomfort. “There was a death. Some question about whether or not it was an accident –“

“That’s all been investigated and cleared up,” Teddy interjected. “It’s ancient history. Jinx was exonerated.”

“And fired,” Carmilla said with her teeth showing. “So that’s why you’re in this freak show. You can’t get another job as an acrobat.”

“And what brings you here?” Jinx purred. “Lost the midnight video gig, and got tired of doing children’s parties? Hmmm? Face it, sweetie, we’re both here because we’re desperate.”

Carmilla was making a strange, guttural noise and staring at Jinx as if she was considering how to devour him.

Teddy quickly tried to regroup, grabbing the first thing he saw, which happened to be Ed’s notes. “What’s this?”

Several others picked up their copies and gave them half glances. Carmilla took one look, gave a kind of death rattle, then dropped it.

Ed’s moment had come. He cleared his throat. “I spent the day yesterday doing research. I managed to find out quite a bit in such a short time, and what I discovered may change our shooting schedule.”

Teddy picked up the notes, gave them a pained look, then set them down again. “How?”

Ed straightened his glasses. “Cassandra died at around three in the afternoon.”

“She couldn’t have,” Teddy told him evenly. “We shoot at midnight. Anything else?”

Aghast, Ed had to pull himself together. While he was doing that, Lily spoke up.

“Don’t you think, since we’re using the 100
th
anniversary as a hook for the show that we should pick the exact moment? Three in the afternoon is doable. That gives us almost six hours. We know basically what the show’s going to be about. We’re all pros here. We can run with less.”

“It’s the wrong time for spirits to walk!” Teddy declared. “Ed must have made a mistake. Maybe it was three in the morning.”

“No, no, no,” Ed said, shuffling papers. “Barnabas Elgin’s journals clearly state that it was in the afternoon, and also, Teddy, it was at the head of the stairs, over the front door, not where you thought it was. After the first shock of her death, other details began to get around town. She had been arguing with her father as she went up the stairs. When she reached the top, she looked down at him in the foyer and screamed that she’d rather be dead than lose Robert. Then she threw herself over. That eliminates the accident theory, by the way, though they did bury her in hallowed ground, since they felt there was still a small chance –“