Second To Nun (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 2) (10 page)

Twenty

Giulia returned to the inn with a large envelope full of printouts. Neither the cats nor the dog were on the porch, despite multiple pools of inviting sunlight on the wicker chairs.

The screen door opened before Giulia could grasp the handle.

“A pall surrounds your head,” a resonant alto voice said. “It is black as the deepest night, yet glimmering with the brightness of many stars.”

A tall woman in linen trousers with a knife crease so severe they ought to have a warning label blocked the entrance. Her asymmetrical black hair hung to her right shoulder and brushed the bottom of her left earlobe. Every strand kept to its assigned place even when she moved. Giulia envied hair with such ingrained obedience.

“What are you, with this veil about you?” The woman’s hands sketched a swoop around Giulia’s head and past her shoulders.

CeCe stood in the hall doorway, her phone up.

A male voice behind Giulia said, “I told you these new swim trunks would get me…”

Joel. That meant the next voice would be Gino’s.

“Get you what? More ego-stroking? Out of my way, Mr. Pinup. I need a shower. What the heck?”

“Yes. It is a veil of some kind.” The woman’s hands kept fondling the air around Giulia’s head. Her eyes rolled partway up, revealing their white undersides.

Gross. Giulia considered her options. If she broke up this tableau by walking around Ms. Obedient Hair, would it simply create another ring to this circus?

Where was a Woman in White when Giulia could’ve used a ghost to steal the spotlight?

Movement from the dining room caught Giulia’s eye. Mac’s assistant Lucy peered around the doorframe, texting. Either Gino or Joel snickered.

In an instant, the theatrics evaporated. The woman’s arms dropped, her blue irises reappeared, and she smoothed her hair as though one strand on the longer side had entertained a thought of rebellion.

“I am Solana,” she said. “You are a new guest here. I will return tomorrow and we must meet then.”

Giulia clutched the oversized envelope to prevent her hands from adjusting a phantom veil. It had been four years. She’d thought she was long past that reflex.

“Giulia Driscoll. Is there a particular reason you’d like to meet with me?”

Solana’s laugh was an octave higher than her psychic revelation voice. “You have so many walls erected around your spirit. I see the unusual in you despite them. This is why I am here. If you will allow me an entrance into those walls, I will show you the deeper meanings in your ethereal veil.”

Neon message boards lit up on all Giulia’s supposed walls: Not if we were stranded in the middle of Conneaut Lake in the dead of winter with a hungry Lake Monster circling us.

Giulia’s self-control held. She said, “How interesting. I’ll see if I can manage some time for a meeting. Thank you.”

Now she walked around Solana, who never stopped staring at the air surrounding Giulia’s head. CeCe slipped her phone into a pocket when Giulia passed her.

Joel and Gino caught Giulia in the second floor hall.

“Hey, Giulia. If CeCe uploads that video to YouTube, you’re gonna go viral.” Joel still looked hugely entertained.

Giulia didn’t bother to hide her grimace from them. “This was supposed to be a peaceful getaway. My husband and I haven’t taken any time off since our honeymoon last year.”

“Ouch,” Gino said. “Well, it sure won’t be boring. Best I can offer.”

“I gather Solana is Mac’s tame psychic?”

Joel snorted. “Tame psychic. That’s perfect. All she needs is a Goth collar with a tag.”

Gino gave him a “duh” look. “Did you see her clothes and hair? She’d only wear a collar if Paris Hilton gave her a hand-me-down from one of her yappy little purse beasts.”

“Yeah, I don’t see Solana shopping at Costco.”

Giulia cataloged their naked delight at the free entertainment. Toyed with and discarded the idea of asking CeCe to delete the recording. Added Mac’s friend Lady Rowan sending Mac to DI for the “veiled woman” to Solana’s “sparkling black veil” performance. The result: DI was being played by an expert trio. Or by Mac, and the other two were on her payroll. Or by the psychics and Mac was their dupe.

Giulia knew a few Irish curses by now. She didn’t let loose with any of them as she forced a rueful smile. “If this turns out to be my fifteen minutes of fame, I’ll be signing autographs tomorrow after breakfast.”

“That’s the spirit,” Gino said. “We’ll be first in line.”

“Right now I want to be first in line at the lunch truck,” Joel said.

“Yes, dear.”

They opened their room door and Giulia locked herself into the supposedly haunted Sand Dollar room. First she set the envelope on the dresser. Second, she closed the windows. Third, she climbed onto the bed. Fourth, she shoved her face into her pillow and screamed.

The quasi-military
Godzilla
theme played from her phone. She raised her head, shoved her always disobedient hair out of her face, and punched the button beneath her husband’s picture.

“Please tell me you’re on your way.”

“Better than that. I’m in the parking lot next to a certain copper Ion.”

“I’m already there.”

Giulia slid sideways down the banister. Hey, she was on vacation. The beagle had returned to the porch, but not the cats. Maybe they enjoyed Solana’s presence as little as she did. She jumped from the bottom porch step into Frank’s arms.

“You are the best thing to happen to me in days.”

After a prolonged public display of affection, Frank said, “Not another fire?”

“A psychic encounter which may have been uploaded to YouTube already.”

Frank guffawed. “I have to see this. What did you do?”

“Me? Absolutely nothing. Come on. You need to be briefed.”

He took a small rolling suitcase out of the Camry’s trunk. “I remember. I’m an IT consultant because I know enough about setting up networks to convince anyone at this place who wants to score some free advice.”

“And you’re here a day later than me because you had an emergency network failure to fix. I manage a local coffee shop. Have I mentioned how much I despise lying?”

“Too many times to count.”

“I pre-confessed to Father Carlos for this entire week last Saturday. He absolved me for the fake job interviews to catch Flynt the scumbag and for this cover assignment.”

“I won’t begin to pretend to understand the system you and Carlos have worked out so you can attend Mass with a clean slate.” Frank surveyed the front of the inn. “Give me the layout of this place, please.”

Giulia pointed over her shoulder. “Behind you is the carriage house, which Mac—everyone calls her Mac—converted into her own living area. The first floor of the inn has the kitchen, dining room, living room, music room, and sunroom. Also a pass-through to the lighthouse. The second floor has two bedrooms and a reading room which she calls a library. The third floor has three bedrooms and that’s it, except for the attic and cellar.”

Frank stooped to scratch the beagle’s ears. “Sounds like a plain old renovated house.”

“Bingo.” Giulia looked in vain for the cats. “There are no TVs.” She cut off Frank’s groan. “But there is Wi-Fi.”

“There’s hope for my fantasy baseball league yet.” He stopped just inside the kitchen and checked the placement of all visible doors.

“Stop being a cop,” Giulia whispered.

“Never off-duty,” he said, “especially when my wife is here to evict a territorial ghost with an affinity for setting fires.”

“That’s not what happened.”

Frank stopped at their doorway. “Sand Dollar room?”

“It has atmosphere.” Giulia opened the top dresser drawer.

“What it doesn’t have is a TV.” He tossed underwear, shorts, and shirts in more or less the same order as hers. “What’s the Wi-Fi password? Never mind. I see it here.” He typed into his phone, scowled, and waited.

“Ah, ESPN, how I love you.” With the phone in his left hand, he spread out the other papers. “We can get pizza and beer delivered. Shrimp baskets too. I like the beach.”

Giulia opened the top drawer and fluttered her slinky nightgown until Frank looked away from his phone.

His eyebrows arched, but he didn’t comment. Instead, he set down his phone, walked to the bed, and pushed on the mattress several times until it bounced. “No creaks,” he said. “Good.”

“Come outside and I’ll give you the whole fire story.”

“Not yet. I have to find this YouTube video.”

Giulia groaned. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

He typed into his browser, typed again; a third time. A fourth. His finger touched the screen and after a good twenty seconds Giulia heard Solana’s voice describing Giulia’s “pall.”

Frank’s face got redder than his hair until he laughed so hard he drowned out the sound from the phone.

“
Muirnín
, that’s priceless. Who do I thank for this?”

Giulia left the room without answering. Frank caught up to her on the stairs. The cleaners were still working on the patio so they walked out to the porch.

The driver’s door of a slate blue Prius closed on Solana’s dark hair. Giulia put a hand out to stop Frank. They didn’t move until the car drove away down the street.

“That was the psychic.”

“But I wanted to ask her about the Veeeiled Woooman.”

Giulia stomped down the porch steps. Frank followed, laughing again.

Twenty-One

Giulia bought a tangerine snow cone and Frank a hot dog as they walked along the boardwalk parallel to the beach.

She started with last night’s three-way Ouija board session, segued to the fire, recited a précis of everything she knew about the guests, and ended with the sheaf of printouts waiting for her in their room.

The beachfront was packed. Jimmy Buffett songs played from the speakers at one bar. A block farther on, a second bar played sixties retro. Down the streets between the bars, different shops sold t-shirts, salt water taffy, sunscreen, magazines, and disposable cameras. “I didn’t know those still existed,” Giulia said.

They hung a right down the street with the least crowded sidewalks and tossed their food papers into a trashcan shaped like a sandcastle.

“It sucks that the fingerprints were a bust,” Frank said.

“I know, but the suspect pool is small enough for that not to matter.”

One storefront appeared to have the swimsuit market to itself. A coffee shop advertised banana daiquiri smoothies. Frank pointed out three restaurants for them to try. When they returned to the beach, speedboats and Sea-Doos crowded the water farther out on the lake.

“Ever been on a Sea-Doo?” Frank said.

“Never.”

“We need to shoehorn in an hour for that. All in the name of our cover story, of course.”

“The rental place should be right around here. Mac’s nephew runs it.”

Frank pointed. “Second pier to the right.”

A tall, white-haired man was choosing between small motorboats when Giulia and Frank walked onto the dock. Two grade school kids sprawled on the dock flat on their stomachs, staring into the water. Three sets of fishing gear, two small and one large, lay at the adult’s feet.

A man about Giulia’s age was describing the different features of each boat. His retro-preppie look wasn’t completely out of place. Where else to wear deck shoes minus socks if not on the waterfront? Although no preppie worth the name should have the beginnings of that beer gut. He wore his brown hair in the 1980s blow-dried style too. To complete the look it really ought to have been blond.

The old man chose a boat and paid. The kids grabbed their paraphernalia and bounced into the boat, rocking it something wicked. The old man got them settled and the preppie cast the boat off. Then he turned to Frank with a business smile.

“Morning. Looking to rent a boat?”

“Yep,” Frank said. “We’re staying at that lighthouse place and it’s girly. I need some real recreation.”

“Liar,” Giulia said. “You said it reminded you of your grandmother’s.” She wasn’t quite sure if Frank was trying to create a male bonding moment to get the nephew to open up easier, so she waited for a cue.

“What do you have in mind?” the preppie said. “Fishing? Water skiing? Sea-Doo?”

Frank turned to Giulia. “Yeah, babe—Sea-Doo. Don’t you want to scream across the lake, sending up fountains of spray with the wind whipping your hair?”

Giulia made the face she got when a skunk walked by their house. “My new bathing suit is meant to be seen, not to get wet.”

Frank rolled his eyes as he turned his head toward the preppie. “Guess it’s fishing.”

Giulia walked away to the souvenir shop where the street met the dock and made a small show of evaluating the handcrafted jewelry in the window. The window also gave her a faint reflection of Frank and his new bud. They laughed. Frank mimed the length of a caught fish; the preppie acted impressed.

They walked several steps over to a narrow two-story house farther back from the water’s edge. The first floor was taken up by the rental and repair shop.

The preppie took a brochure from a rack outside the door and pointed out several things in it to Frank. After a few more words, Frank came over to Giulia.

“I have a new soulmate,” Frank said as they walked back onto the crowded beach. “Walt and I can’t understand why women buy bathing suits that aren’t supposed to go in the water. Also, I may have embellished the length of that pike I caught on my last fishing trip.”

“Father Carlos is always ready to hear your confession,” Giulia said.

“That’s still better than confessing to my own brother,” Frank said.

“It’s the hazard of all families with a priest as a sibling. If you ever have to confess to Pat, I will wheedle a recording out of him despite the seal of the confessional.”

“Hell will freeze over first.”

Three preteens ran into them, apologized, and kept running. Two smaller children chased after the older ones, trying and failing to aim gigantic squirt guns.

Frank said, “My pal Walt could be a Casablanca-like fount of information. Everybody comes to the boat dock on a lake.”

“Then by all means spend more time with him.”

“I hear and obey.” Frank stuck the brochure in his pocket. “A two-hour small boat rental is only fifty bucks. I can get in some fishing and take him for a beer afterward.”

Giulia said, “This afternoon is dedicated to research on guests and staff. If the Wi-Fi is always as slow as it has been today, I’ll have to go back to Cottonwood Monday to get in any useful searching.”

“Leaving me on my own with Sea-Doos at hand. Awesome.”

They reached the Stone’s Throw area of the beach and climbed the short hill. The patio was empty but large “WET PAINT” tent signs blocked the cushionless furniture. The older man who’d tended the bonfire last night was hammering croquet wickets into the abused grass. A bocce ball court on the opposite side of the patio still needed raking, but the sides had been replaced.

“Game later?” Frank said.

“Always. First, though, studying.”

“For you. For me, ESPN.”

They entered the sunroom, where Roy and CeCe were playing Monopoly with Marion and Anthony. Giulia introduced Frank. Roy and Gino gave Frank elaborate, in-the-know winks when he left to take Giulia to their room.

“Afternoon sex. Ah, vacation,” Frank said. But when they closed themselves into their room, he left the bed to Giulia and her research and took his phone into the bathroom.

“What the hell kind of a shower is this?”