Roses Are Red; He's Dead (A Mellow Summers Paranormal Mystery Book 9) (8 page)

“Not much to tell,” said Patrick. “Mostly traveling, and dealing with employees. Not long ago we had this one incident with someone who—”

“I don’t think she wants to hear about that,” Aimie cut him off.

“No, go on,” I urged.

“Well, we caught him stealing,” Patrick finished.

“Did you have him arrested?” I asked, intrigued.

“No,” said Patrick. “I mean, the authorities were never able to catch him. He skipped town and could be anywhere.”

“So what did you do?” I asked.

“Nothing,” said Aimie. “We decided to just put it all behind us. Live and learn, you know.”

Our food arrived and we stopped talking long enough to eat. While I reached for my fork, I tipped over my glass of water, knocking it off the table and spilling water everywhere. As I hurried to clean it up with a napkin, the red gem I had picked up from Billy’s apartment fell out of my pocket. I scooped it up and shoved it back into my pocket, hoping no one had noticed, but I wasn’t so lucky.

“What was that?” asked Patrick.

“Nothing,” I replied.

“Really? Because…”

“It’s nothing.” My tone told him to drop it. The waiter showed up soon after with a towel and mopped up the water before replacing my drink. The rest of the meal was spent in minimal conversation.

“Thanks for supper,” I said when we left the restaurant.

“It was our pleasure,” said Patrick, as though the water incident had never happened, or my curt manner when the ruby had fallen out of my pocket. I didn’t know if it was an actual ruby, or just a fake, but hoped that I would make it to the jeweler the next day.

“We should…” began Aimie, but I noticed Chad across the street, walking past a set of tables with dinnerware on display and a bag in his hands.

My phone rang. “Excuse me,” I said as I answered it.

“Mel?” It was Greg. “I lost Chad. I’m sorry. I know I was supposed to keep an eye on him, but he started getting suspicious about me following him.”

“I know where he is,” I said.

“Really? Where?”

“Oh, about 50 yards away from me.” I watched as he paused by a display window. I looked at Aimie and Patrick as they watched me. “I’m afraid I have to go, but I thank you for dinner. See you around?” I told them, placing my hand over the receiver of my phone.

“Sure. No problem,” said Aimie, pulling Patrick away.

“Mel?” Greg said when I put the phone back to my ear.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “I don’t think…” My voice trailed off as I watched a dinner plate, from the display table, rise up into the air and follow after Chad. Oh no. Billy. “I got to go.”

I hung up my phone and charged across the street towards Chad. The plate rose higher. I snatched it just before Billy could hit Chad with it, and placed it on another display table. Chad hadn’t noticed anything.

Just then, a snow shovel that had been leaning against the wall, swooped into the air. I lunged for it, wrapping my fingers around the handle and dove behind a corner, just a Chad turned around, but he never saw me.

“Will you stop it?” I hissed at Billy, even though he remained invisible.

“No!” came his disembodied voice.

The shovel dropped in my hands and I knew that Billy had disappeared again. Peeking around the corner, I watched as an empty flower pot headed straight for Chad’s head. Would this vendetta ever stop? I dropped the snow shovel and sprinted for the flower pot, stretching my hands out for it. I reached it just before Billy had a chance to hit Chad with it, but in my haste to stop him, I tripped and crashed into Chad, knocking us both to the pavement. The flower pot crashed on the ground, shattering, pieces spreading in every direction.

“What the—” shouted Chad as he smashed into the ground, with me landing beside him.

“Sorry! I… uh… I…” I sputtered, unsure of how to explain my actions.

“Are you okay?” asked Chad.

“Yeah, I…” I noticed that the ruby was not in my pocket. Frantic, I searched for it and found it on the sidewalk, with a black shoe next to it. I looked up into the very irate face of Matherson. I reached for the object, but he grabbed it before I could.

“Where did you get this?” he demanded.

“Give it back,” I said, holding out my hand.

“Where did you get this?” Matherson said again, his tone suspicious.

“I found it. It’s not even real,” I replied.

“Is there a problem here?” asked Chad.

Matherson glanced across the street before putting the ruby in my hand, stepping closer so that he could speak to me without Chad overhearing him. “I wouldn’t keep it, if I were you.”

“What was that all about?” Chad asked after Matherson had left.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“And the thing in your hand?”

“Found it. It’s pretty worthless.”

“And the knocking me over?”

“An accident.”

Chad gave me a disbelieving look, but what could I say? I couldn’t tell him that a vengeful ghost was trying to exact some sort of revenge.

“You ruined everything!” Billy hissed into my ear.

I ignored him. Now was not the time to talk to a ghost.

“Fine! Don’t listen to me.” Billy vanished, though I had a feeling that he wouldn’t be gone for long.

“What brings you to town?” I asked Chad.

“Emily has a bit of a cold and sent me here to the 24 hour pharmacy for some cough medicine.” Chad held up the bag. “I was on my way back.”

“Really? So was I.”

“I’ll walk with you then.”

Fine with me. At least, then, I could make sure that Billy didn’t try anything. Once on the trail that led back to Emily’s, I shivered, wishing that I had remembered to wear something better suited for a hike in the cold. Chad gave me his coat.

“Won’t you get cold?” I asked him.

“No, the cold doesn’t bother me that much,” he said. “Where’s your boyfriend? I thought you two would be together.”

“I wanted to do a little shopping,” I told him, maintaining the story I had told Aimie and Patrick, “and he isn’t that big on it.”

“Oh.”

“Is something bothering you?”

“What was all of that back there?”

“Nothing,” I said, “I noticed the flower pot hanging from above about to fall on you and thought I would try to catch it before it did. Guess I wasn’t so graceful.”

“And the incident in your cabin, when you had me look at the fridge even though nothing was wrong with it.”

“Greg insisted that it wasn’t working properly.”

“And then the incident this morning with the tree branch?”

I didn’t answer right away. How could I? What would I say? Hello, Chad. This Billy, who worked as a janitor, and whose dead body turned up in my room, his ghost is haunting you, convinced that you killed him. I don’t think that would go over too well.

“You don’t have a crush on me, do you?”

“No!” That came out ruder than I had meant it to.

“It’s happened before. One woman came here with her boyfriend and started hitting on me. Her boyfriend was not pleased and there was a bit of a heated confrontation between us.”

“Heated confrontation?”

“A few punches were thrown. That was it.”

“It’s not like that,” I assured him.

“Then why is it your boyfriend has been following me around all day; and when I go into town, I run into you?”

Before I could think of an excuse, a snowball crashed into Chad from behind and I found myself glad that Billy had shown up. “Take that you murdering jerk!”

Chad turned around, staring at the wooded scenery behind us and I knew that he had heard Billy’s outburst, even if he didn’t see him. “What was that?”

“Probably just some kids,” I said.

“Calling me a murdering jerk?”

“You know how they are.”

I motioned for Billy to go away, while trying to make sure that Chad didn’t notice.

“Well, he is!” shouted Billy, throwing another snowball at Chad before disappearing.

Chad just stood there, confused as to how a snowball had managed to throw itself.

“Let’s just go,” I said, pulling him along. Please, do not ask me what had just happened, I thought to myself.

The rest of our walk was done in silence. I knew that Billy’s antics had confused Chad. It’s not every day you see something move of its own accord. When we arrived back at the resort, red and blue flashing lights greeted us. Confused, we both headed for them, while I prayed that no one else turned up dead, and that Billy hadn’t decided to do something stupid just to get his revenge.

“Mel!” Greg ran up to us.

“Greg, what’s—”

“They’re looking for him!” Greg pointed at Chad, yanking me away from him.

“What? Why?” I said, still confused as to what was happening.

“Mr. Seagel?” said an officer, approaching Chad.

“Yes,” answered Chad.

“I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Billy Sunders.”

“What?” screamed Chad. “I didn’t do anything!”

The officer turned Chad around, and placed his arms behind his back before handcuffing him.

“Yeah!” said Billy, but only I heard him. “Take that, you murderer!” He threw another snowball at Chad.

I glared at Billy.

“What?” he said to me, noticing my disapproving look. “I didn’t do it.”

“You threw the snowball.”

“No, I mean the murder weapon.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” said Billy, “they found the thing used to knock me on the head in Chad’s locker. Emily had agreed to a search.”

Billy left to continue taunting Chad, much to the confusion of the officers around us.

“I don’t get it?’ I said. “Why stay here, if he killed Billy?”

“Maybe he thought that running would make him look guilty,” said Greg. “The murder weapon was found in his locker.”

“Why did the police wait so long to search through the lockers?”

“The detective on the case wanted a warrant, but I overheard Emily say that she would have agreed to it no matter what. She wants this whole thing over with.”

I couldn’t blame her on that one.

“Maybe we ought to leave,” I heard one guy say to his girlfriend. “I don’t think this place is safe. Hiring a murderer and all.”

Emily stood outside, watching the proceedings and I could tell she had overheard what that man had said as a panicked look crossed her face and she chewed her nails. The poor woman. I knew that she was seeing the dismal future of her business right then.

I hated to say it, but I had to agree with Greg; it looked like Chad had actually done it. As I listened in on the conversations around me from the other guests, I learned that it was a small club that had been used to strike Billy over the head. It still had his blood on it when they found it buried in Chad’s locker, and Chad had been keeping an eye on Greg and me ever since Billy’s corpse turned up in our cabin. It all fit.

“Come on,” said Greg, taking Chad’s jacket from around my shoulders and placing his own on them, “let’s go.”

“I guess I owe Billy an apology,” I said. “He was right.”

“Hey!” Aimie ran up to us. “Can you believe it? And to think that you were alone with him in the woods all of that time.”

That just made me feel worse.

“Emily is having a gathering by the fireplace in the lounge,” Aimie continued. “There will be free drinks and everything. We should go.”

“I really don’t…”

“It probably wouldn’t hurt,” interrupted Greg. “She might have something important to say.”

“Sure,” I said. “I just need to drop something off in our room first. Meet you two there?”

“Sure. I’ll just text Patrick, so he knows where I am.”

I stopped off at the honeymoon cabin that Emily had put Greg and me in after our original accommodations had been turned into a crime scene. Once inside, I switched out Greg’s jacket for my own, but kept his so that I could give it back to him once I got to the lounge, and placed the red paperweight, as Billy called it, in a dresser drawer. I still wanted to get it checked out by a jeweler. It looked like a real gemstone, but there are so many realistic fakes that I wanted to be sure.

Once I had what I needed, I turned off the lights and locked the door.

Chapter 7

The raucous crowd filling the lodge deafened my ears when I entered through its double glass, and timber wood doors. People clumped together in small groups, talking so loud that their voices echoed all around me as I navigated my way to where Greg and Aimie waited for me.

“Where’s Patrick?” I asked Aimie.

“He’ll be along,” she replied. “Probably lost in this crowd.”

I glanced around and laughed. The lodge was packed.

“Attention! Attention!” Emily had set up the karaoke machine and used its microphone so that she could speak over the crowd. “Please, may I have your attention.”