Cloudy with a Chance of Ghosts (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 4) (3 page)

“Well… .” I felt awkward and wished I’d just gone back to the table. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” I said, turning and starting back down the stairs. Glancing back, I could see that she’d already forgotten me, so I breathed a sigh of relief and started toward the terrace.
 

Something caught my attention as I went. I looked through the sliding glass doors that opened onto a side patio and I saw Jagger out on the path, almost hidden by the bushes, talking to that dark-haired Keri Shorter woman. The thing that startled me was the hold he had on her arm. He was talking passionately as far as I could tell, and she seemed to be trying to tear herself out of his grip. He glanced in, noticed me and quickly let her go. She turned and walked into the trees. I didn’t stick around. I figured it was none of my business. But once again, I wished I could warn Jill about him.
 

The table had been abandoned by the time I got back. Everyone was milling about, taking pictures of each other and enjoying the view by leaning out over the railing. I found Jill and scanned the area, wondering where Jagger was now. Should I tell Jill about what I’d seen?
 

I looked at her. Her eyes were just a little too bright and her smile looked forced. She knew something wasn’t quite right. I wasn’t going to say anything to increase her misery.
 

Alda, the organizer called us all together for a group photo. Just as we were settling in place, a flock of seagulls came swooping over, crying out with their noisy calls and flapping their wings much too close to human faces for comfort and everyone scattered across the terrace.
 

It took time for everyone to calm down and to get into place again.
 

“I hate those birds,” George Marker, the trash can painter said to no one in particular as he came to join us. He’d been out walking around and still had leaves in his uncombed hair. “When they did their little attack on us, I could have sworn I heard someone scream, but then I realized it was just a bunch of crazy, nasty birds.”

“Birds are people too,” Jill said, more to counter his mean nature than to convey any sort of truth.
 

“All animals are nothing but trouble,” he said, grinning at her with crooked teeth. “I try to euthanize as many as possible at all times.”

She glared at him. “You should be locked away,” she muttered, but not loud enough for him to hear.
 

He laughed for some unknown reason and I wondered if he was all there, mentally. A very strange man, and not one I wanted to get to know better.

“You should hear peacocks if you think those things sounded human,” Alda noted as she tried to get us into some semblance of order for the photo.

“Peacocks on the grass—alas, alas,” I murmured and Jill hit me with an elbow to the ribs.
 

“It’s pigeons on the grass,” she corrected tartly. “If you’re going to make fun of things, you could at least get it right.”

I stared at her. She was hardly ever testy. “Who are you?” I whispered. “And what have you done with my best friend?”

She flushed and gave me a one armed hug. “Sorry,” she said. “I just wish….”

She wished Jagger would stick by her side and not be running off to who-knew-where every five minutes. I knew it. She knew that I knew it. And we were both sorry about it. But there it was.
 

Before I had time to think of something comforting to say, Alda was ordering, “Everybody say cheese!”

The photo was finally snapped and then Vince the reporter had to ask for us to pose for another one for his paper and finally everyone began to mosey off. We’d begun to walk back inside when we heard a real human scream. It came from outside, down the slope below the house, and we all gasped and rushed to the stonewall again to look down. There was Jagger coming up the outside stone steps toward the terrace. He seemed to be carrying something, but I couldn’t see what it was. And further down, just beyond where the young citrus trees were growing, Celinda Moore was just emerging from a brushy area, waving her arms and crying out.
 

“Hey, you guys! Hey! Someone’s hurt! Come quick! Somebody call 911!”

We all assumed someone had fallen, and we began to stream down the stone steps, some faster than others. A couple of people reached her right away, and then a voice cried out, “Hey! Too late. I think she’s dead!”

Celinda screamed out, “No!” and turned back frantically, as though she might still help her.
 

But the rest of us all stopped as though we’d suddenly been turned to stone ourselves.
 

“Dead?” people began to mutter. “Oh no.”

“That can’t be.”

“There must be some mistake.”

One of the men who’d gone all the way down came out of the brush, shaking his head. “I used to work as a paramedic,” he said. “I’m sorry to tell you all, the lady is definitely deceased. It must have happened recently, but she’s been gone too long for any further attempts to do any good.”

“Who is it?”

That last voice, rough and just this side of emotional, belonged to Jagger, still standing on the steps, looking a bit confused. He looked at Jill, and then he looked back out toward where Celinda was standing, looking tragic and wringing her hands. I could see now what he was carrying. It looked very much like the clutch leather purse Keri Shorter had tucked under her arm when I’d seen her arguing with Debbie earlier.
 

“It’s that dark-haired woman with the glasses,” Celinda called up toward him. “The one who’s been hanging around lately, asking questions. I think her name was Keri?”

My gaze swung around toward Jagger and I saw his eyes widen, and then he looked down at the purse he was carrying. Suddenly he looked like he wanted to get rid of it any way he could.
 

Too late. Everyone else was staring at him in wonder.
 

“I…I was just holding this for her,” he said lamely, looking around into faces as though he thought he could explain it all away if they only saw things clearly.
 

But no one was listening any longer. A large group of people tried to leave, but Alda stopped them.
 

“The police are going to have to give the okay before we can let you go,” she said firmly.

“But just because there’s been an accident….”

“We don’t know yet exactly what has happened,” she pointed out. “Please be patient. We still have tea and scones enough for everyone. Please go back to your tables and stay there until the police get here.”

We did that, but it was a completely different atmosphere now. We talked softly, but our eyes kept straying to the empty chair where Keri Shorter should have been sitting.

Celinda showed up and took her seat as the paramedics arrived.
 

“Well?” Carlton said to her gruffly. “What happened?”

“To Keri?” Celinda shuddered and held her arms in close to her sides. She definitely looked shaken. There was no sarcasm now. “I don’t know. She’s still lying exactly like she was when I came across her in that brushy area.”

“Is there….?”

“Blood? Yes. She was bleeding quite a bit from the head.”

“She must have hit her head when she fell,” Carlton announced as though he knew that for sure.
 

Celinda looked uncertain. “I’m not sure if that is what killed her,” she said, looking nervous. “There was this large rock lying there and….it had blood on it.”

“What?”

We were all stunned. I couldn’t help it, I glanced immediately at Jagger. He was looking as stunned as anyone else. Was it real? Was he faking? Who knew?
 

But I looked at the purse he had sitting on the table in front of him. He looked at it as though it had turned into a stick of dynamite and he was going to have to find a way to get rid of it. I saw his gaze skitter around the room, looking for an appropriate receptacle and coming up empty. Funny how quickly supreme, wide-shouldered confidence can turn into basic panic mode when things go against you.
 

“When did you get that?” I asked him.
 

Jill gasped, but I held his gaze with my own. He knew I could bring up what I’d seen between the two of them. Maybe that would help make him answer honestly.
 

“I…I was just going for a walk on the lower path—I really needed to think something through--and she was coming toward me. All of a sudden, she thrust the purse at me and said, “Here, hold this, will you? I’ll be right back.”

He looked at us as though trying to assess if we were buying his story.
 

“I stood there waiting for about ten minutes. I thought she’d gone to the bathroom or something. Then I gave up the waiting and started up the stairs to the terrace, and at the same time, Celinda called out that she’d found the body. I swear I didn’t move from the spot where she gave me her purse until then.”

Jill was looking pale. “Of course you didn’t,” she said, patting his arm. “Of course.”

Looking down at the lower area, I could see Vince racing about, trying to collect information as well as photos, and I thought he would have been wiser to stick with us up on the terrace. It seemed that was where the information was.
 

The paramedics arrived, and then the police. I shrank down in my seat, hoping Captain Stone wouldn’t be the responder. Then he walked in the door and I hoped he wouldn’t notice me. But of course he did. He came right toward me, shaking his head.
 

“Unbelievable,” he muttered, standing close to where I was sitting but not actually looking at me. “You again.”

I tried to smile. After all, my Aunt Bebe liked this guy. I, however, didn’t. Not really.
 

“Sorry,” I said, not abounding in witty rejoinders at this point.
 

“By my count, this makes five murders you’ve been involved with since you came to town. Would you say that was accurate?”

I just glared at him. He shook his head and moved on.
 

At least Roy—Lieutenant McKnight-- wasn’t with him. Though I was obviously going to have to face him soon. He would have his own disbelieving look to offer me.
 

“Well, I guess that confirms the fact that they consider this a homicide,” Carlton said, looking morose. “Right here on the grounds of my own house.”
 

He swore rather obscenely and I could hardly blame him. He went on complaining, but I wasn’t listening any longer. I was thinking about poor Keri Shorter. She’d seemed so ordinary, rather boring, not someone you would think needed killing. What could the motive have been? And who would want to kill her here during an art show? It didn’t make any sense.
 

Okay, that meant things were not what they seemed. It was bound to come out that she had a secret life nobody guessed at. Had to be. What was murder usually about? Revenge, rejected love, cheating and money. Probably money most of all. Who’d been robbed by mousy little Keri? Who’d she been stealing from?
 

Some people had gravitated toward the railing so that they could try to see what was going on at the crime scene, and at one point, I heard a sigh ruffle through the crowd, then a gasp. First Keri’s body was removed by the paramedics, and then Jagger was led off in handcuffs. By now we were all in state of permanent shock.
 

I turned and found myself standing beside Celinda. I shook my head. “Have you known Jagger for long?” I asked.
 

“Oh sure. He’s been a part of the art group that Carlton sponsors for the last few years.”

“What do you think of him?”

She shrugged. “Nice guy. Good artist. Though not as good as he thinks he is.”

“And?”

She gave me a sideways look, knowing just what I was asking. “A true born Casanova. Isn’t that obvious?”

She walked off and I nodded to myself. That would be my assessment too.
 

It took another hour for the rest of us to be questioned and asked to make short statements. As I left the beautiful house on the hill over the ocean, I looked back and saw the little Siamese cat face staring after me, those blue eyes so wise and knowing, it gave me chills.

Chapter Three

“What we’re going to do now,” I told Jill as I drove us back from the exclusive area where Carlton Hart had his mansion, “is stop by the house and grab Bebe and head on over to the Texas Bar and Grill for steaks and a good stiff drink or two. And we’re going to talk over what we need to do next.”

Jill hesitated. “I really should get back to my coffee bar,” she began tentatively.

“Nuts to that,” I said in my most decisive manner. “You’ve trained all those employees very well. It’s time to let them prove it to you. We need to talk.”

She wilted under my superior logic and I felt a bit of pride. Maybe I should take the reins more often. Maybe I’m just brimming with leadership qualities I haven’t had the nerve to try out yet. Maybe…

Maybe I ought to keep my mind on the real problem here—and that was Jagger. Was he the killer? I sure hoped not. But we were going to have to brainstorm our way through this stuff and the sooner we started the better.
 

An hour later we were sitting in a leather-bound booth at the Bar and Grill, nursing our drinks and waiting for our steaks--and listening to morose country songs playing on the old-fashioned juke box. I was beginning to wonder if the Cherry Lane Soda Shoppe might not have been a better idea. At least there they played cheerful pop tunes.
 

But I was glad to get Bebe out with us. Lately she always seemed to be locked in telephone conversations with Captain Stone or busy with her foreman, meticulously planning the new orchid growing house she was putting in.
 

“I need to understand the full story from start to finish,” Bebe said, looking slightly dazed. And no wonder. It was a bit confusing to someone who hadn’t been there. “The full, complete story. Give it to me now.”

And so we did.