Cloudy with a Chance of Ghosts (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 4) (7 page)

“It’s no wonder he chooses to paint what he does,” she said, shaking her head. “It seems to be right down his alley.”

Old George wasn’t there to defend himself and her nagging was getting old, so I risked asking an uncomfortable question.
 

“Have you recovered from yesterday’s ordeal?”

She looked at me, surprised. “It wasn’t my ordeal,” she said. “I just walked around a tree and found a body. Then I called in the discovery. It had nothing to do with me.”

I thought she was a little quick to jump on the defense. “Can you tell me something?” I asked, but didn’t wait for her permission. “Did she have any papers with her when you found the body? Did you see a notebook or….?”

“No, nothing,” she said, turning away abruptly. I could tell she wasn’t up for any chatting on the subject.
 

“She was wearing a camera on a cord around her neck,” a voice said behind me. “I saw it when they were loading the body into the paramedic van.”

I turned. It was Quill, taking her exquisite pen and ink drawings off the wall and sticking them into a case she had on wheels. Very nifty. Very efficient.
 

“Thanks,” I said. “Did you have a chance to talk to her at all?”

She shook her head. “Not yesterday. Although I did have lunch with her the day before.”

“You did?” I glanced around the room to see who was still there. Celinda was going off as quickly as she could. Alda was busy explaining something to some other artists over on the side, so Jill was the only one left to overhear.
 

“Was it a friendly lunch?” I realized that sounded tacky. “I’m sorry, but you see Jill and I are trying to find out what happened….”

“To help Jagger. I understand.”

“Yes.” I grimaced, hoping I wasn’t going to have to come right out and start aggressively questioning her.
 

“Don’t worry.” She smiled a Cheshire cat smile and patted my arm. “She had an ulterior motive for asking me to meet with her. She wanted to pump me for information about Carlton.” She shrugged and made a face. “I carefully avoided telling her anything that might matter. I hate that kind of journalism. But the Caesar Salad at the Bay Club was divine.” She waved with only fingers and started off down the hall, pulling her cart behind her.
 

“Thanks so much,” I called after her, then looked at Jill, but before I could say a word, yelling was heard from outside the building.

We went out onto the terrace and looked down at the parking area. There was Marilee, half running to her car. Debbie was coming after her. I couldn’t understand what she was screaming at her, but it was definitely emotional. Marilee didn’t linger, hopping in and roaring off down the driveway. By the time I looked back, Debbie was out of sight beneath the overhang.
 

“Wow. What do you suppose that was all about?”

“I’ve got no clue.”
 

We walked back in. Jill was frowning again.
 

“I think I’ll go ahead and take the smaller ones out,” she said, flashing me a look. “Then maybe I can see what Debbie is up to down there.” She shrugged. “I’ll be right back.”

She left and I began packing up the largest of Jagger’s paintings. It had won a prize and still held it’s gold ribbon. I had to admit, I really did like it. The colors he’d used, the line and shadows, were evocative of a yearning that seemed to hit me in my secret space—right between my heart and soul.
 

I was smiling to myself about that when I heard a meow. Turning quickly, I caught sight of my little Siamese dashing around the corner. Where was she going this time?
 

“Hey,” I told her as I quickly followed. “Did you know that people say you don’t belong here? What’s the deal little cutie?”

“Meow.”

Her cry had that deep vibrato some Siamese achieve and it made me laugh. I looked around, wishing there was someone nearby who could confirm that she was real. She came over and rubbed against my legs, then dashed off again and I had to follow.
 

Turning a corner, I realized she was heading up the stairs again.
 

“Oh no, sweetie. I can’t go up there.”

I stopped at the foot of the stairs and watched her reach the top, then turn back and call to me. Something inside was pushing me, pulling me, trying to make me follow her again. As happy as she made me, there was something as little scary in it all.
 

“No!” I told her.

She called again, even more urgently. It was obvious cities would fall and the dam would break if I didn’t do what she wanted me to, right away.
 

I looked around. There was no one to see me. I had to go.
 

“Oh, alright,” I said, and ran up the stairs behind her. She was going into the same bedroom and I went in, too, my heart beating like a drum.
 

There was someone in the room.
 

“Oh!” I started to back out again, apologizing, until I took another look.
 

A young girl of about eleven sat on the bed. She had long blond hair and big blue eyes and was dressed in a long, filmy blue dress that made her look like a princess. She smiled, very serene.
 

“Hello,” she said.
 

I gulped. I knew she wasn’t real. Or maybe, a better way to say it was that she wasn’t a real, live girl. She was something else.
 

“Who are you?” I asked hoarsely.
 

“My name is Julia Geiger. This is my bedroom.”

“You…you live here?”

“Of course. I lived here long before Carlton Hart and his daughter moved in.”

“I see.” And I thought I really did. It was getting so that I couldn’t go anywhere without bumping into ghosts of one kind or another. At least she seemed somewhat benign. Some didn’t.
 

“Well…” I turned, ready to leave. I really didn’t want to get involved in ghost problems.
 

“She took them,” she said softly.
 

“What?” I turned back.

“She took them.”
 

She gestured toward the wall and I looked over to see that a space behind the wainscoting had been pulled open, looking like a small mail box in the wall, right at the point where I had felt the buzzing before. It was open and it was empty.
 

I turned back to Julia. “Who took them?” I asked. “And what did she take?”

“It was the woman who used to live here. Marilee. She took everything.” She shrugged, looking tragic. “I couldn’t stop her.”

“Does Debbie know?”

“Debbie?” She looked blank, as though she didn’t know who I was talking about. “I don’t know.”

This whole situation didn’t make any sense, but I was beginning to realize it was usually like that with ghosts. I didn’t know if it was a case of them really not knowing things, or if they were hiding things they did know, or if they were just annoyed with living people and didn’t give a fig whether they helped them or not. It was a mystery.
 

Suddenly I noticed that the little Siamese cat was sitting next to her on the bed. Well, that made a lot of sense. No wonder she was so infuriating. She was a ghost cat I supposed. Funny. She looked substantial.
 

I heard Debbie’s voice from below and I sucked in my breath and turned on my heel. “I have to go,” I said. I really didn’t want to get caught up here again—especially now that the secret place in the wall was empty.
 

I was down the stairs in a flash and ready with a bright smile the moment Debbie turned my way. She was walking in with Jill and didn’t even acknowledge my presence.
 

“I think he’s really an important image in the artistic community,” she was saying. “I’m sure all this nonsense about Keri will get cleared up and he’ll be back, good as ever.”

“I sure hope so.” Jill sounded worried. She looked over at me. “Did you get the rest of the paintings packed up?” she asked.
 

Of course I hadn’t. I’d been trailing ghost cats up forbidden stairways and meeting wispy wraiths with secrets. I didn’t have time for common hard labor.
 

“I was just taking a break,” I said, giving her a wink.
 

She frowned at me which was unexpected. I could tell she was seriously unsettled about the situation with Jagger. Was she beginning to wonder why he had been kept at the police station for so long? I was afraid there were substantial reasons for that.
 

“We ought to get this done,” she pointed out, looking anxious.
 

And so we got back to work.
 

A half hour later we had everything packed up and ready to go. We carried the boxes out to the truck, then looked back at the house, sitting so high and proud above its neighbors. I wondered what Carlton was doing—what his daughter Debbie was up to. The murder in their front yard had to be completely debilitating for both of them—yet, they could do better if they reached out to the rest of us instead of acting like we might be guilty.
 

Still, maybe that wasn’t it at all. What if
they
were guilty? It was something to think about.
 

“When does Jagger get released?” I asked Jill.

“He said he might be home in time for lunch,” she replied. “But I thought he would have called me by now.”

“Okay. Why don’t you drop me at home and take the truck? That way you can store the paintings wherever he’s planning.”

“Oh, thanks Mele. That would be great.”

“Girls! Oh girls!”

It was Alda, coming out from the house with a stack of something in her arms.
 

“Wait a moment! I’ve got copies of the photo from yesterday. The one where we tried to get everyone included. Of course, we couldn’t get everyone. You know what happened to poor Keri, but there are others who didn’t show up for the picture as well. I just don’t know why people have to make it all so hard to organize. But never mind. Here, I wanted you each to have a copy of the group photo.”

“Oh, thanks Alda. I’d love to have a copy.”

“I set a bunch out so that everyone could pick up one as they were leaving, but someone grabbed the whole stack and took them. Can you believe it? What would they do that for? So rude! But no matter—I had more already printed. So I’ve put a new stack out, but I wanted to catch you and make sure you each got one.”

“Thanks Alda. I appreciate it.”

“Me too,” said Jill, taking one and studying it. “There we are,” she told me, pointing out our position. “Oh this is great. I love it. Thanks Alda.”

“We loved having you and hope you come to our next event in June,” she said. “I’ve got your email addresses and will be sending you announcements.”

She waved and headed back to the house. We got into the truck and started down the driveway, but I was thinking. That picture was going to be important to us in so many ways. Once we got far enough away from the house, I pulled over.
 

“Let’s take a look,” I said. “Let’s see if we can figure out who was in the picture and who was missing.”

“Because?” Jill asked.

“Because the murder was taking place at the same time.”

She gasped. “Of course! You’re right!”

I spread out the photo on the seat between us. “Okay, we know Jagger isn’t here. And Keri, of course. And Celinda. Can you find Marilee?”

We both studied it for a few minutes.
 

“Nope. No Marilee.”

“That’s what I thought. I did see her go to the area where she had a room when she lived there. That was before the murder. I don’t think I saw her again until after Celinda found Keri. Did you?”

Jill shook her head. “But what about Carlton and Debbie?”

That was easy. They were both front and center.
 

“That woman, Quill?”

I found her with no trouble at all.
 

“How about the man who paints trash cans?”

“George Marker? Isn’t that him scrunched down in a chair behind where those two blond women are standing?”

“Hmmm. Could be. Though I can’t be certain.” She frowned. “Oh, and there’s Shady Tree, right by the potted palm tree.”

“Um hmm.”

And then I saw her—the girl who’d been in the bedroom. She was standing at the edge of the group and she looked….she looked almost transparent. It gave me chills. I wondered if Jill could see her, but I couldn’t make myself ask her. It would just lead to questions I didn’t want to answer yet.

Chapter Six

“What’s the matter?” Jill said.
 

“Uh…I’m okay.” I shook it off. “So the picture is missing Jagger, Celinda, Marilee and Keri. Anyone else?”

“Well, that’s a problem, really. There could be people missing from the picture that we didn’t ever meet and didn’t ever know were there. We only met a fraction of the crowd. So I don’t think this really proves much of anything.”

“Let’s go over the ones we know about. We know what Jagger was doing. At least, we think we do. He was standing around holding Keri’s clutch bag and waiting for her to show up and take it from him.”

“That’s what he says.”

She glanced at me suspiciously, but I made sure I didn’t have a hint of sarcasm in my face.
 

“Marilee was up in her old bedroom waxing nostalgic.”

“Was she emotional?”

“Very. I had the feeling leaving the house wasn’t her idea. She would have stayed if she’d been invited to.”

Jill wrinkled her nose in thought. “Poor thing. To spend years of your life in a house, being part of a family, and then to have it all ripped away—that’s tough.”

I shrugged. Life is change. Anyone who doesn’t prepare for that is going to get hit by a tidal wave of unexpected pain if they don’t protect themselves. I’d learned that the hard way.
 

“Keri wasn’t getting her picture taken because she was busy getting murdered. But what was Celinda’s excuse? What was she doing wandering down in that orchard anyway?”