Phantoms Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mystery #13 (20 page)

Louisa drained the last of her
wine and put on a bright smile. “Let’s don’t allow your final evening to be a
downer in any way, okay?”

I nodded.

Our server came up behind me and
before I quite knew what was happening had delivered the check into Louisa’s
graspy hand. We did a little haggle over who should pay; I still felt that she
had saved me a fortune in hotel costs. But she had her money out and I
acquiesced. Treating me to the nice dinner seemed like something she genuinely
wanted to do.

“Come on, then. Let’s get on
home. I’ve bought another of those Battenberg cakes you loved so much. We’ll
make a cup of tea.”

We walked out into the quiet
evening. A lone bird called out somewhere, and in the far distance the sound of
traffic drifted over from the A14. But the neighborhood streets were nearly
silent now at the dinner hour.

“I have to admit that I’m feeling
a bit guilty now about taking Dolly’s papers, particularly the journal,” I said
as we crossed the street. “Even though Archie might not want to know what she
wrote in there, the book itself belongs among her things.”

“Truly? Even if he might have
been behind her death?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Well, I did
make those copies.”

She chuckled.

“Why don’t you go ahead and start
the tea,” I suggested. “I’ll pop over to the shop. Archie will either be
upstairs or he’ll still be working at packing up. If I don’t see him I’ll just
drop this through the mail slot. That way you and I have all day tomorrow to
have fun and make the drive to London.”

“It’s quicker if you cut along
the path beside the church,” she said. “If you aren’t afraid of the graveyard’s
residents.” Her lopsided grin made the suggestion into a dare.

“Me? I ain’t afraid of no
ghosts!” I turned right, humming the
Ghostbusters
theme song while she
continued to the left and home.

Chapter
25

The path beside the heavy old
Gothic church was quiet and deserted. Ahead, a lone streetlamp glowed but it
seemed far in the distance. I pulled my blazer tightly against the damp and
picked up my stride.

To either side of me drops of
dampness hung on the thick grass. The old grave stones were black chunks rising
from silvered lawns. That theme song wouldn’t leave me alone, even though I
made a conscious effort to switch to something less vivid, a classic waltz
perhaps. Ahead, mist swirled around that distant streetlamp.

Okay, Charlie, this is just
way too movie-set freaky.
I tried humming an old Creedence Clearwater tune
but the notes came out reedy and the weak sound just bounced off the stone
walls around me, making it seem that voices were coming from all sides. I
quickened my pace again but refused to break into an all-out run.

Finally, it felt like four hours
later, I passed under the street lamp and the cross street was visible on the
other side. I knew where I was—one block over and three up, and I would be at
the shop.

At the next intersection cars
were driving along in perfectly normal fashion and laughter from a pub came out
along with a bright square of light that hit the sidewalk.
See, silly, there
was nothing to worry about.

Without the carved wood sign
above the door, I didn’t immediately spot The Knit and Purl. But then I
realized the moving van still sat there, all closed up and dark. The men must
have quit for the day but left the truck rather than taking a chance that their
prime parking spot would be gone in the morning.

The shop itself was dark except
for a light coming from the stock room. A shadow crossed the rectangular
doorway. Archie must be working in there. I glanced toward the mail slot in the
other door, the one that led up to the apartment.

It would be simple enough to drop
the diary and the legal papers through the slot and not have to admit that I’d
taken them. But what if Archie were not the one to find them? What if he didn’t
check there before completely vacating the premises and someone else came
across them? They contained information far too sensitive and personal to leave
to chance like that.

I tried the door to the shop but
it was locked. I tapped at the front window. Twice. Finally, Archie peered from
the stock room, a silhouette against the golden light. I pressed my face near
the glass so he could see who was there.

“Charlie? What is it?” he said
when he opened the shop door to me. He’d forgotten to remove the dangling
string of bells and they tinkled just as happily as in the days when customers
came in.

“I need to talk to you,” I said.

The store’s fixtures were gone,
leaving the small room feeling cavernous and hollow. Without the sales counter or
display shelves the only signs of the former shop were dustballs and a few
random bits of trash. The boxed files and office supplies sat near the door to
the stock room.

 
He ushered me forward. “I’ve been clearing up the last of the
things in there. Once the buyer came and took the fixtures away it seems quite
barren in here, doesn’t it?”

I followed him to the back room,
where it appeared he’d made quite a bit of progress. A few boxes were stacked
against the wall and the metal shelving was dismantled now. The large work
table in the middle of the room still held a ton of clutter.

He looked oddly relaxed,
completely businesslike. I still had a hard time picturing him grinding up
pills and putting them in Dolly’s food. He seemed like a man quietly going through
the motions of adapting to a new life.

“Archie.” I cleared my throat and
wondered if this was the best approach. “I know about the affair.”

He looked up from a box he’d just
taped shut, his bland expression giving away nothing.

“You and Catherine Devon. Dolly
suspected it for a long time.” I held up the journal.

He gave it a cursory glance, as
if he’d never seen it before.

“I don’t know—”

“You do know what I’m talking
about.”

“Actually, Ms Parker, I was about
to say that I don’t know that I want to discuss this with you.”

“Fair enough. You don’t owe me an
explanation.” I set the journal on the work table. “But you did ask me to look
into Dolly’s death because you didn’t think she purposely took those pills.”

“And I still don’t believe that.”

“But don’t you see? If the police
were to look into it, wouldn’t you be the most likely suspect?” I lifted the
sheaf of legal pages. “You certainly have the most to gain from your wife’s
death.”

“What’ve you got there?”

“Archie, surely you’ve seen this?
Dolly’s father’s trust. He left her quite a lot of money. I tracked it down
after hearing Nigel Trahorn’s message on your answering machine.”

I took the micro tape out of my
purse and set it with the journal.

“I’m sorry that I took these
things from your apartment, but I was following your instruc—”

I swore I heard the bells at the
front door. Archie must not have locked it after I came in. I stepped to the
doorway and peeked out, only to find myself face to face with Gabrielle.

Her eyes went wide, matching my
own I felt sure.

“You too!” she said.

What?
I backed into the
storeroom and bumped into the table.

“What are you doing here with
him?” Her peach complexion was now suffused with blotches of red, her eyes
wild.

“Gabri—”

I have to admit that I barely saw
it coming. She advanced on me, picking up one of the steel cross pieces from
the metal shelves Archie had disassembled. She grasped the thing like a
baseball bat and swung it at me. I stumbled around the work table, backing away
from her wild movements. The cellar door stood open and she drove me toward it.
My foot went off the edge of the uneven stone landing. I felt myself
cartwheeling into space.

Everything went black.

*
* *

A hazy roar sounded in my ears,
like the steady pounding of surf on a windy day. My eyes tried to open but felt
heavy and dysfunctional. One lid raised partially, my vision blurred, it closed
again. I gave in to the feeling, succumbing to the desire to sleep.

Voices intruded—one male and one
female—but I couldn’t make out the words. The roar in my ears kept intruding.
Everything felt cold and rough and painful. I rested again but something deep
inside warned me not to allow myself the luxury of real slumber. I stretched
the fingers of my right hand, felt a hard surface like concrete. It was cold to
the touch and I began to realize that my whole body ached with it. I squeezed
my eyes tight, trying to work up enough moisture to open them.

When I finally peered out through
a web of lashes, all I could see was a nondescript expanse of gray, heavy shadows,
large unfamiliar objects. I blinked again and worked to make the other eye
open. A ghostly image moved in the distance, but when I got both eyes to focus
on it I realized it was a foot in a smooth leather shoe.

“. . . ready, my darling,” said
the female voice.

A mumbled response in deeper
tones told me that the man had replied but I couldn’t understand his words. My
hearing remained muffled. I wanted to shake myself, like a dog, rid myself of
the hurts and the fuzziness.

“Soon,” she said. “I shall . . .
soon.” The words faded in and out but the voice was vaguely familiar.
Gabrielle.

Footsteps sounded
crisply—tap-tap-tap-tap—across the floor, then a more uneven pace. I tried to
turn my head to see where they went, but the tiniest motion sent excruciating
pain and a wave of nausea through me.

A thump, somewhere above me. I
closed my eyes again.

“Ms Parker?” A small touch on my
shoulder woke me. “Ms Parker, wake up. Are you all right?”

Do I look all right?
Something inside told me that I must be fine if I could conjure up that
thought.

I wiggled my fingers again,
brought my right hand up to my face. It came away bloody.

“Ms Parker, it’s Archie Jones.
Please wake up.”

I must have drifted off again for
a second there.
Okay, Charlie, you have to get moving
. I rolled over to
my back and stretched my legs out. I must have been lying on my left side,
fetal position, for quite awhile. The bones felt like they’d flattened to the
shape of the floor.

“Where—?”

“We’re in the cellar at the
shop,” Archie said.

I raised my hands to my face,
taking a little inventory, noting that some kind of gash at my right temple
seemed to be the cause of the blood. I groaned, rolled over, pushed myself into
a sitting position. Kept my eyes closed, head in hands, against the vertigo. In
a moment I felt like I could open them.

Archie knelt beside me, clearly
having no clue what to do. He looked a little gray in the face but otherwise
unharmed. I imagined his wan expression came from looking at me.

“What happened?” I asked.

He looked a little discomfited.
“Gabrielle pushed you.”

I remembered. “We were in the
shop.”

“Yes. You fell down the steps.”

And you really came to my rescue
there, didn’t you, he-man? I didn’t say it. I shifted my weight a little. My
lower back hurt like hell. Breathing was agony around my ribcage. I could see
where my jeans were ripped across one knee, and the left sleeve of my blazer
was barely hanging by a few threads. I looked over toward the stone steps
leading up to the shop. It was a wonder Gabrielle hadn’t killed me.

“Give me a hand,” I said.

I worked to get my legs under me.
Archie helped pull me to my feet. A blade of pain ripped through my left hip
when I put my weight on it.

“Where is she now?” I asked.

He pulled a handkerchief from his
pocket and wiped at a tiny smear of blood on his hand.

“She’s gone. Said she was getting
something ready and she would be back soon.”

I limped over to a chest of
drawers that the movers hadn’t taken away yet and leaned on it for support.

“Archie, what the hell is going on
here? Why did Gabrielle come after me?”

But my question fell on deaf
ears. He’d already crossed to the far wall and turned to pace the distance
again.

“I’m so worried for Catherine,”
he said.

“Catherine?”

“Gabrielle just seems so very
determined.”

I didn’t know what strange little
games this bunch were playing but I knew I wanted out of there. Now. I looked
toward the stairs, calculating whether I could possibly climb them.

“It’s no use,” Archie said,
guessing my thoughts. “She’s locked it from the other side.”

“You don’t have a key?”

“She took them.”

Once again, I cursed his
passivity. How could he sit back and just let himself become a victim? Let
alone stand for what Gabrielle had done to me. I glanced at my watch but it was
smashed. Surely Louisa would get worried when I didn’t come home and she would
come to check on me.

And find what? There was no way
she could know we were in the cellar. At least she might contact the police and
tell them I was missing. I clung to that hope.

“Is there an opening from the
street down to this cellar?” I asked Archie. “You know the type, where
businesses receive deliveries?”

I knew the answer to that almost
as soon as I’d phrased the question. Louisa and I had spent the night down here
and examined every nook and cranny for traces of the unexplained haunting.
There was no delivery chute.

“What time is it?” I asked.

Archie pushed up the sleeve of
his cardigan but his arm was bare. “I guess I left my watch in the apartment.”

Well, fine. I was back to hoping
that enough time had gone by for Louisa to get worried about me. I tested my
legs to see if I could walk. Each step sent a jolt through my left leg and each
breath was agony. I could probably get up the stairs in a life-or-death move
but it would be foolish to waste the energy to go up there to find that the
door was locked, and then have to make the painful journey back down. I needed
to think this out before I exhausted my small reserve of energy.

“Have you checked the door?” I
asked. “Maybe she closed it but forgot to lock it?”

He shook his head. “It’s locked.”

“Is my purse down here?”

Archie turned his head, glancing
around.

“Can you look for it? I might
have something in there that could help us.”

He moved around the room, finally
spotting it beside the steps. He picked it up in that uneasy way that most men
carry a woman’s purse and brought it to me.

I spied a chair in the corner. I
wasn’t at all sure I could get back up from its overstuffed depths once I sat,
but standing around wasn’t helping my hip at all either. Limping over to it, I
sank down into the cushion and allowed myself to simply melt. It was the only
scrap of comfort I’d felt yet.

My bag sported a few new scuffs
and when I unzipped the top I was greeted by the heavenly scent of the bottle
of eucalyptus lotion I carried with me. The plastic cap had split and nearly
everything in the purse wore a coat of it. Would this night just keep getting
better and better? I scraped enough of the silky stuff off my small bottle of
ibuprofen to get it open and wiped the spare lotion into my skin. Tapped four
of the little brown pills into the palm of my hand.

“Is there any water down here?”
My luck, it would be a bottle that one of the sweaty movers had left behind but
I could hardly afford to be picky.

Archie dithered around some more
but didn’t come up with anything. I worked up as much spit as I could and
worked the pills down. A dozen swallows or so and they felt like they might
actually make it to my stomach.