Never Say Dye (A Sibyl Potts Cozy Mystery, Book 3) (10 page)

“She admitted she was James’s aunt,” I whispered, aware that the kitchen wasn’t too far from the dining room. I could hear Dorothy in there; water was running, pots and pans were banging.

Cressida wrung her hands. “If she’s the killer, if she poisoned me, we need to know. I don’t feel safe; I don’t want her here.”

“I don’t think she is the killer, Cressida,” I said.

“What makes you say that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “It’s just a hunch.”

“The human bird shall take his first flight, filling the world with amazement, all writings with his fame, and bringing eternal glory to the nest whence he sprang.”
(
Leonardo da Vinc
i
)

Chapter Eighteen
.

A sense of anticipation had descended upon the boarding house. There was something exciting over the fact that a television content executive was coming to the boarding house, even if no one knew exactly what a television content executive did.

I had heard about it that morning from Cressida. My phone had started ringing at five in the morning, and I grabbed it from my nightstand and answered it. I had been groggy, and sleepy, and not a little irritated that someone would call me so early.

“What are you doing for lunch?” Cressida asked, as soon as I had said
hello
.

“It’s five in the morning,” I had said.

“I know, I know. And the answer to the question I asked you is that you’re coming down here for lunch, because a Hollywood hot shot is coming to speak with James and his team.”

“What?” I asked, waking up. I had sat up in my bed, leaning back against the headboard.

“He’s a network content executive. That’s what I heard James saying, anyway.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You heard him saying that at five in the morning?”

“No, I heard him saying that at four in the morning. I just happened to be near his room, and he was talking on the phone with someone.”

“Interesting,” I said.

“Interesting? A Hollywood type is coming here, and he’ll be here at lunch time, so you better get down here.”

“Okay, I will,” I had said.

“Good. See you at eleven. You can help me make sandwiches.”

“What about Dorothy?”

“I can't trust her to make lunch, in case she poisons us all. I’ve given her the day off.”

I laughed and hung up. I set my phone back on the table and went back to sleep.

I was at the boarding house at eleven on the dot. I walked up the front steps and pushed the door open. No one was in the hall, so I continued on to the kitchen, where I found Cressida making a big bowl of potato salad.

“I didn’t want to get too fancy,” Cressida said by way of greeting. “I figured someone from television has enough fancy food.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“Full disclosure - I’m missing one of my nails,” Cressida said as she held her right hand out to me so I could see that one of the acrylic pink nails had come off her index finger. “I think it’s in here, so keep an eye out, all right?”

I grimaced and nodded.

“And can you start making sandwiches? Everything is there.”

There wasn’t a lot of time to speak with all the work to be done, so the two of us hunkered down and got lunch ready. By noon there was a nice spread on the dining room table: various sandwiches, the potato salad, a macaroni salad, a large pitcher of ice tea, another of lemonade, along with a few bags of potato chips, and a platter of cupcakes for dessert. For an added plus, the fake nail had been found, indeed in the potato salad.

Cressida opened the door from the dining room to the main hall to find it filled with people. Mr. Buttons was there, as was James, Ken, Michael, and Alex. There was a good looking man of about fifty years of age wearing in an expensive suit. His hair was black and slicked back, and he wore sunglasses, which he pulled off and slid into his breast pocket before shaking Cressida’s hand.

“My name is Victor Fredricks, and I think you all might have known I was coming.”

This drew a laugh from the ghost hunters. I would have laughed too, if I had been expecting a rich contract.

“We have lunch ready for everyone,” Cressida said.

“Thank you,” Victor said, before turning to James. “Let’s eat, and then you and I can discuss what I came here to discuss.”

“Sounds great, Mr. Fredericks,” James said. James’s face was flushed with excitement.

“Please, call me Victor.”

“Okay, Victor.”

And with that we all went into the dining room and ate lunch. I sat a few seats down from Victor, who was enthralling us all with stories of Hollywood, and personal details about celebrities he knew. I hung on every word. It was simply cool. I didn’t know a better word to describe it.

When lunch was finally over, two and a half hours later, Victor turned to Cressida.

“Would you please excuse us? James and I have a few things we need to go over.”

“Of course,” Cressida said with a smile.

Everyone filed out of the dining room, and Cressida and I cleared the table.

I was stacking the dishwasher when Cressida said, “I’ll go and see if I can hear anything.”

I just nodded and kept shoving as much as I could into the dishwasher.

I had just dumped the dishes that didn’t fit into the dishwasher into the sink and was filling it with hot sudsy water, when Cressida returned. “What are they talking about?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve heard the words
contract
,
prime time
, and that’s about all I can make out. Oh, and I’m sure I heard the words
million dollars
.”

My mouth fell open. “A million dollars?”

Cressida nodded.

“So that was why he killed Sue,” a voice said, and I turned to see Dorothy standing by the sink.

“You think James killed Sue?” Cressida asked. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t want him to kill me,” Dorothy said.

“Why do you think your James killed Sue?” I asked, keeping an eye on the knife drawer, just in case.

Dorothy took a step closer to me. “I heard them arguing, the night before Sue died.”

“About what?” I asked, as I moved further away from Dorothy.

“Sue was mad at James. She said he was faking everything, and she didn’t want to be a part of it. Sue had said she wouldn’t let him do that. She said she would tell everyone. And the next day she was dead.”

At that moment, the door swung open, and Victor walked into the room.

“I didn’t mean to scare you, although when you’re in a house this haunted, I’m not surprised you’re all on edge!” the man said, with a smile. His teeth were so white they were almost blinding. I supposed that everyone in Hollywood had teeth like that. “I just want to thank you for a lovely lunch, and it was great to meet you all, and I have a plane to catch.”

“You’re all done?” Cressida asked. “That was fast.”

“Well, you know what they say in Hollywood,” Victor said. “Hurry up and wait.” He winked and then left.

“Well, we had better call Blake,” Cressida said, when the door shut. “And we had better call him fast.”

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”
(
C. S. Lewi
s
)

Chapter Nineteen
.

Mr. Buttons kept an eye on the window while I searched James’s bedroom, looking for evidence to indicate that James was faking the ghostly phenomena.

“Hurry, Sibyl - James will probably be heading back soon.”

“I know, but we have to find something first.” I rummaged through suitcases and duffel bags, when my eyes fell upon some furniture in the corner. I walked over and lifted up a round, wooden table. It looked heavy and old, but I was able to flip it right-side up with one hand. “Mr. Buttons, come here - I think I’ve found something.”

He walked over and looked at the table without even a hint of optimism on his face. “A table?”

“Not just a table. Look at this.” I handed the table to Mr. Buttons and tilted it so he could see a metallic device that was fastened under the bottom of the table. “I think it’s for a signal or something. Look, there’s even a remote.”

Mr. Buttons reached over and slid the remote from its holster. He pressed a few buttons on the tiny remote, and the table shook.

“Wow, so this is how he did it,” I said. “One press of a button and it looks like a ghost is randomly shaking the table.”

Mr. Buttons pointed to a strange-looking contraption poking from a black duffel bag. “See what that is.”

I leaned over, and seized the device. It was square in shape, with large antennae, several LED lights decorating the top, and a gauge with a floating needle resting in the center. I pressed one of the buttons, and a ghostly voice emanated from the other side of the room.

I jumped and clutched at my throat. “That scared me,” I said, somewhat unnecessarily.

“He’s set it up so that if you press that button, the ghostly voice comes out of that camera,” Mr. Buttons said. He crossed the room and fetched the camera. “Press the button again, Sibyl.”

I did, and the ghostly voice said, “Leave!”

“That was the voice we heard the other night,” I said.

Mr. Buttons nodded. “Yes, and with the cameras being in the other rooms, no one would know the voices were actually coming from the cameras. Sibyl, we have enough. Let’s take the camera and the EMF meter and get out of here.”

I looked around the room, which was in disarray. “No, we’d better cover our tracks first. Mr. Buttons, could you hurry and call Blake, and tell him to get here fast, and I’ll quickly put everything back, so that James won’t know anyone’s been through his things.”

Mr. Buttons nodded in agreement and headed toward the door. “All right, but make it fast - he could be back at any minute.”

I set the table back down in its original location and tidied up as best I could. I heard the door open, and I swung around.

“What do you think you’re doing up here?” James’s tone was filled with fury.

“I’m sorry. I came up here to look for you, and the door was open. I just thought it would be cool to see some of your ghost hunting gadgets.”

James turned around and locked the door behind him. “You do realize I’m not stupid, right?”

“Err, umm,” I stammered.

“So you thought you’d come up here and look through my gear for what? To find a motive for Sue’s murder? Did you find one?”

“A motive?” I parroted.

He looked at me in disgust. “I see you’re standing right near my table, and I’m sure you’ve already found out that it’s rigged to make it look like paranormal activity is affecting it. Also, I suppose you’ve discovered that the EMF detectors are rigged to go off whenever I want them to.”

No, I hadn’t known that. “So what if your show’s a bit staged?” I said. “I watch a lot of TV. I’m sure it’s all staged.”

James walked toward me and I backed against the wall. “Sue was going to blow the whistle and come out with the truth. Sue and I dated on and off for a long time. We pretty much started this thing together. Sue objected when I faked stuff for the pilot. So, I told her we needed to part ways and that I’d make sure she was compensated for being in the pilot. That was not something she was willing to accept though. She told me she had emails, photographs, video, and everything else she needed to prove I was a fraud. She even threatened to go to the network with the information and demand she stay on the show.”

“So she was going to use extortion as a way of staying on the TV series?” I said, hoping to keep him talking until help arrived. “Surely the network would have dealt with it themselves.”

James let out a snort of derision. “No. They would have canceled the entire thing. It was worth over a million bucks to me – did you hear that? A million bucks!”

“So you killed her?”

James shrugged. “I didn’t have a choice. I injected nicotine into her hair dye – quite clever of me, I thought.”

“Well, you nearly killed Cressida, too.”

“I didn’t mean for anyone else to get hurt. Well, until now.” Without a warning, he lunged toward me and seized me by my arm. With his fingers digging painfully into my arm, he dragged me toward the open window.

I threw myself backward, and I collapsed to the ground, pulling James down with me. James scrambled back to his feet, and grabbed me with both hands. “Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.”

James dragged me to the window, and when I caught sight of the ground below, I struggled even harder. It was a long drop to the ground, with James’s room being two stories up, and I knew I wouldn’t survive the fall. I screamed, but James clamped his hand over my mouth.

At that moment, the door flew open with a loud thud. As James looked up in surprise, I took the opportunity to knee him hard in the unmentionables. I ran forward, and staggered into Blake’s arms. “He killed Sue,” I said.

“I’ll take care of him. Keep her safe and get her outside,” Blake said to Mr. Buttons, who was right behind him. He turned back toward the room and shut the door.

I crumpled into Mr. Buttons’ arms as we both fell against the wall and slid to a sitting position.

There were a few loud noises and banging sounds from within the room, and then Blake opened the door, pushing a handcuffed and sullen-faced James in front of him.