Muffin to Fear, page 21
Becket had returned empty-mouthed to the great hall and yowled, his howl echoing through the cavernous great hall. He stalked sideways, back arched, a big orange ball of fur; his hair was standing on end all over his body. Doors started to open upstairs. Sleepy-eyed folks stumbled partway down the stairs, and Hugh, in elegant pajamas, materialized by my side.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
I pulled Rishelle up, trying to help her. She was shaking all over, and her hands were slippery, covered in blood. “Rishelle, tell me what’s wrong. Where are you hurt? How can I help?” I looked up at the faces above, blinking, sleepy, scared, and to Hugh. “Call 911! Rishelle is hurt!”
“No, no!” she shrieked. She grabbed me with her bloody hands, shaking me by the shoulders and staring into my eyes. “You don’t understand. He’s d-dead!”
“What is she talking about?” Hugh asked, hovering.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Rishelle, tell me what’s going on!”
“He did it. I never believed he would, but he did it. It’s Todd . . . He sh-shot himself . . . out in the van!” She sobbed and collapsed. “He’s dead!”
Chapter Twenty-two
ONE MORE TIME: Someone dies, we call the police, investigate, rinse, and repeat. It was unthinkable, the regularity with which these events occurred. I was numb with horror.
We all sat, guarded by a deputy from the sheriff’s office. For once I had not been the one to find the body. Rishelle was a quivering, shaking, bloody mess from what she had witnessed, the lifeless body of her husband. No matter that they were cheating on each other, no matter that they may have broken up at some future point, Todd was her husband. The story she had babbled before the sheriff arrived was awful. She stated that Todd’s body was slumped over in the driver’s seat, the gun still in his right hand, the driver’s side window shattered. It was truly deeply horrifying and I pitied her from the bottom of my heart.
I thought of Todd’s last words, the message of “Bohemian Rhapsody” floating out the van window. What haunted me was the refrain that repeated that nothing really matters, and the gun reference. It was chilling. Todd Halsey, joyful ghost hunter, was dead. This was not the outcome I had expected, a suicide to add to the awful murders we had experienced in the last year. I was grateful I had sent Lizzie back to her grandmother’s home the night before.
Virgil sat down beside me and grabbed my hand. “You okay?”
“Relatively, I guess.”
“I got Urquhart to talk to me,” he whispered, cradling my hand in his. “The gun wasn’t registered to Todd. He couldn’t get a gun because he had a—”
“Felony conviction, and had been barred from owning any firearms,” I finished, then told him what I had learned the night before.
“Yeah. Well, what you may not know is, the gun in his hand was registered to Stuart Jardine.”
I looked at Virgil, surprised. “Really?” I’d said that too loudly in my surprise, and glanced around, then lowered my voice. “Stu bought the gun? He is so not the gun type.”
“He told Urquhart that he never wanted the gun; he bought it for Todd.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
He nodded. “It’s called a straw purchase, when you buy something—guns, cigarettes, alcohol—for someone else who either can’t or doesn’t want to buy it for themselves. And it is indeed illegal in New York State. Here, if you buy a gun for someone else, that person has to be eligible to purchase a firearm, and the gun must be passed off through a licensed gun dealer. This means that though Stu says the gun was Todd’s, it’s still registered as Stuart’s.”
My gut hurt; we only had, at this point, Stu’s word for it that he had given the gun to his partner. What if that wasn’t true? What did that mean? “But why did Todd want it? Did Stu say? Did he plan this suicide?”
Virgil shook his head and squinted. “I don’t know. Not necessarily. Some guys feel the need to have a gun. Maybe Todd was one of them.” Virgil was bothered by something. That may sound strange, given that someone had just killed himself in our driveway, but there was something else. He was checking out the others through squinty eyes, a look I recognized as him thinking deeply.
“Virgil, what is it?” I whispered, watching his face.
He turned toward me and shielded his mouth from view of the others by scruffing his sprouting beard. The man grows whiskers in minutes, it sometimes seems. “Urquhart let me view the scene. He’s out of his depth, and he knows it. I told him there’s no shame in calling in the state troopers, and he’s considering it, but he asked my opinion. I gave it to him straight up. This is not suicide.”
I felt the hit like a punch to the stomach. Not suicide. “So the killer has struck again?” My heart thudded and I swallowed past a sickening lump.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Virgil, I’m scared.”
He put his arm around me and hugged. “We’ll get through this.”
“How do you know it’s not suicide?”
“Angle’s all wrong. It’s from slightly above. He could have shot himself that way, but I don’t see it. The scene doesn’t feel right. It looks like it’s been staged for a TV movie of the week.”
I knew Virgil’s feelings on TV mystery movies of the week and the way they staged homicide or suicide scenes. He always says it looks too careful. I’m still not sure what he means; he says it’s “wrong.”
“A few other things that Urquhart told me, too,” he continued. “I’ll tell you later, but one thing is a phone found on the seat in the van beside Todd. They’re trying to get phone records right now, but the server is balking, so he has a call into someone higher up in the company. A warrant is on the way, which he wants before he goes any further. Urquhart needs to talk to you about the evening, before, during, and after the Ouija session. I told him what little we learned, but that you might remember different stuff, or have noticed different stuff.”
I nodded. “I want this over with. I’ll do whatever I can.”
Pish was watching us, his eyes filled with tragedy and tears. He was likely blaming himself. I beckoned to him. He cast a quick glance at the deputy, then scooted over to us. He grabbed my hands and kissed them. “My darling, I’m so sorry we’ve landed in a pickle yet again. This is terrible! Poor Todd. Did that Ouija session push him over the edge? Do you think he killed Dirk?”
I exchanged a glance with Virgil, and he gave a faint nod. I told Pish, emphasizing this was in confidence, that it likely was not suicide. He got the implication immediately, and surveyed the group.
Serina was a weeping, wilting basket case at first, but now she was narrow-eyed and glaring at Rishelle. Todd’s wife was quiet, and it appeared that her thoughts were all turned inward. She wore a housecoat, since she had handed her clothes over to the police. If Virgil’s training held sway over Urquhart, I assumed the sheriff would also have had her hands photographed and tested for GSR, as well as fingernails scraped. She had been questioned, and then finally allowed to wash.
At first, when she joined us, Arnie had openly tried to comfort her, but she had shrugged his arm off her shoulders and moved away from him. She was alone and appeared to prefer it that way. Even when Millicent tried to comfort her, she shook her head, refusing sympathy or comfort. Instead, she isolated herself in a high-sided club chair, hugging a cushion like a shield and curling up in her pink housecoat.
Stu was mumbling to himself and wandering, looking under seat cushions for something and patting his pockets absently. He had probably misplaced his clove cigarettes or the Ben Franklin biography he had been reading. He kept shaking his head and muttering. Was he going round the bend, too, his hipster mind irrevocably broken by his partner’s death?
I watched them all. So far no one had said murder. I assumed that they all still thought it was suicide, given Rishelle’s hysterical description of it as such. I tried to organize my thoughts and what I knew about Todd. Something Hugh had said came back to me; Todd was a thorough researcher and so very likely knew about the recent history of my castle. He had tried to corner me about that, and had intended to use the tragedies. In that attempt he had been ably assisted by Dirk, also dead.
Which meant that the others could have known about it, too, though they didn’t have the power to push the production company into sending them here. Or did they? Had one of them used Todd to push Wynter Castle as a Haunt Hunt site and make him break his plan to go elsewhere? Who had that power of persuasion over him? And why would they convince him to come here? Why Wynter Castle?
I was confused and troubled. Todd’s last words and that snatch of music came back to me again and again. Nothing really matters . . . at all. Those were the words of someone who had given up, and yet I trust Virgil’s opinion over anyone else’s, especially that of the new sheriff in town. My gaze slid around the room: Rishelle, Arnie, Stu. All had betrayed him. Each also had a potential motive for murder.
Urquhart looked in the door, caught my eye, and beckoned to me. I followed him to the parlor. He shut the door behind me and indicated one of the low slipper chairs near the fireplace. I took a seat. I may have indicated in the past that the new sheriff and I don’t see eye to eye on many things, but Virgil is standing by his pick, and in general, I get why. Urquhart is smart. He never, to my knowledge, lets his emotions influence his investigative behavior. I think his dislike of me has mellowed to a general lack of understanding why Virgil—a man he deeply respects—loves me.
“This is awful, Sheriff. I don’t know what to make of it, I’ll be honest,” I said. I had given up my husband’s flannel shirt, since Rishelle had laid her bloody hands on it, and was wrapped in a heavy cardigan. It was time to start lighting fires or turning up the ancient boiler system in the castle.
“I assume Virge told you that it’s not suicide, in his opinion?”
“Yes. You sound neutral about it. Are you still investigating it as a possible suicide?”
He nodded. “He might be right, but the doctor says it’s completely possible to kill yourself that way. There was one gunshot, there appears to be a contact between the gun barrel and the head, and other things are consistent with suicide.”
My phone vibrated in my sweater pocket, but I ignored it for the moment. “Other things?”
“Your own words about how he seemed hopeless. And Serina Rogers said they were having an affair, but they had a big fight and she told him some things about his wife and best friend that devastated him.”
“Serina did tell me last night she had said those things. And Todd was devastated. He took off for a ride, like I told you, but last I saw Serina, she was headed outside. Maybe she waited for him to come back? Or maybe she phoned him. She may have come back inside, because I went to bed soon after that. I didn’t lock up; I wanted Todd to be able to come back in.”
He digested that, nodding. “The wife claims he has threatened to kill himself in the past. And you say that was her first assumption, when she entered?”
“Yes, that is the first thing she said, that he’d actually done it. And Todd’s last words to me . . . it sounded like he was suicidal.” I sighed deeply. How different this all seemed from my first impression of Todd Halsey as a happy-go-lucky sort dedicated to his mission of investigating haunting. It was a potent reminder that behind many a smile lurked desperation. “Virgil mentioned a cell phone on the van seat, and that you’re trying to unlock the phone, or get phone records to see if he was talking to anyone before his death?”
He nodded. “Nothing yet. Can we go through last evening?”
I found myself organizing my thoughts as I spoke. I stuck with the facts with Urquhart, though, rather than some speculative stuff that occurred to me as I mulled over the happenings of the last three days. I made some mental notes that I hoped to jot down on paper later. I simply told him everything I had observed, and whatever had been said, including repeating my late-night conversation with Serina, Millicent, and Felice. I shared what I had heard about Todd’s record. He nodded; he already knew about that.
He dismissed me and I exited to the great hall, getting my cell phone out of my pocket. Lizzie had texted me to ask if I was picking her up. I looked at my watch. Good heavens, it was after seven A.M. Hours had passed! She thought she was coming out today to help the Haunt Hunt crew pack up and get a recommendation from Hugh for her work, such as it was. I might still be able to wangle a recommendation from the producer for Lizzie, even if they never broadcast the Wynter Castle Haunt Hunt, and I was assuming they wouldn’t, especially in light of the cohost’s death.
Todd’s suicide or murder had complicated things for the show, but also was going to inevitably slow down the sheriff’s department’s investigation of Dirk’s murder. It had become exponentially more complicated. Or . . . it was possible that if the sheriff was right, and Todd had killed himself, then it would simplify things, I reflected. He quite possibly killed himself out of remorse for murdering Dirk.
In any case, life was not getting easier for the moment. And I still hadn’t looked at the footage Lizzie had loaded onto my laptop, the stuff the sheriff’s department was probably going over even now, in reference to Dirk’s death. It didn’t look like I’d have time to do that, but Lizzie or even Hannah might.
Meanwhile, what to do about Lizzie?
I hustled through the kitchen and out the back door, looking out over the long grass toward the garage, rather than to the parking area with the van and Todd Halsey’s body. Pacing back and forth near my dying herb garden I called Lizzie.
“You on your way?” she asked, chewing on something in my ear.
“Lizzie, no. Something has happened.” I told her, as gently as possible, about Todd’s death.
She was silent for a long minute. “I think I ought to come,” she said. “I should talk to the sheriff. I heard something last night, and it might be important.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“WHAT IS IT?”
“I’ll tell you when you pick me up.”
“Honey, no, I can’t!”
“Then I’ll find my own way. See you in fifteen.”
She hung up and wouldn’t answer her phone. I texted Hannah to call me when she got up, and she called immediately, moments after I texted. I told her some of what happened as I paced back and forth behind the castle, and she wowed a couple of times, then told me she had more stuff she had researched, and when did I want to hear it?
Not right that moment, I said, then heard a long, low rumble. Were we having an earthquake? I whirled and there, up my drive, came a caravan of Turner Construction vehicles. It was Monday morning, and work was commencing on the foundation we were building near the forest, as well as drilling to discover a well.
Crap on a stick. The sheriff’s deputy stopped them and spoke to the lead driver, then waved them on, guiding them past the garage and away from the suicide van sitting on my drive. She pointed at me, then them; I took that to mean that I was to speak with them and decide what to do. I nodded, waved, then held up one finger. I turned away.
“Hannah, we’ll have to talk later, but I do have a big . . . an enormous . . . favor to ask of you.” I explained quickly about the rough footage from the camera SD cards. I asked if I could e-mail it to her to look over, and told her what I was looking for.
“You are in luck,” she said calmly. “This particular librarian happens to have the whole day free, since I’m not opening the library today, and I’d love to help. I can’t imagine I’ll be able to watch every minute, but if you send it now, I’ll get to it right away.”
“You are a rock star, Hannah. I mean that sincerely. I’ll tell you the pertinent people, dates, and times in an e-mail.”
I stuck my phone in my cardigan pocket and strode over to the equipment, signaling that I needed to talk to the operator. I climbed up on the doorway and asked him what they were up to, and he told me their plan. There was still a lot to do before we proceeded, and I didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t continue. I wanted them to be able to finish most of the work before the snow started. Unless the sheriff told me otherwise, they were continuing.
I returned to the house and slipped up to my room. I have a little desk by one of the windows on which I keep my laptop. I booted it up, attached all the video files that Lizzie had downloaded from the SD cards to an e-mail to Hannah, and told her some things I was looking for. But I also asked her to keep her eyes open for anything that seemed off to her—looks, people where they shouldn’t be, conversations that seemed off—anything odd.
I scanned some of the footage myself very quickly. There was one time point in particular I was curious about, night before last, just a while after Chi, Rishelle, and Millicent set up the prank. I watched; this was from the SD card of a camera I hadn’t even noticed, attached to one of the equipment vans in the parking area. Leave it to Lizzie to notice it and be sneaky enough to get the memory card without anyone noticing.
I wondered, did everyone know about what DVR cameras were going? Some were set to motion sensory activation, it seemed, from occasional bits and pieces: Becket trotting across the grass and whining and scratching at the back door, a bunny streaking across an open area, someone out for a smoke. It looked like Felice, but it could have been Stu; it was hard to tell. Both smoked, and the night-vision camera didn’t always have the best resolution.
