Second To Nun (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 2) (25 page)

Forty-Nine

The house was empty of guests. Even the animals weren’t in their usual spots on the porch. Giulia knocked on the carriage house door, but it was locked.

Neither Mac nor Rowan nor Jasper answered the doorbell or her repeated calls up to the open window. She backed up far enough to see the entire parking area. A Jeep was missing. Rowan and Jasper must’ve returned to Cottonwood after breakfast to run their own business.

She ran back up the porch steps. There were the cats, pretzeled together under one of the wicker chairs. Tweedledee hissed at her.

No Mac in the office; no one in the kitchen. No Lucy in the second- or third-floor bedrooms. Giulia stopped at the top of the first flight of stairs to catch her breath and strategize.

A whimper. Faint. Giulia leaped down the stairs and used the newel at the bottom as leverage to careen around the corner toward the lighthouse.

But it wasn’t Mac fallen at the foot of the stairs. Jabberwocky the beagle lay there in a crumpled heap, blood matting his brown and white coat. He looked up at her with watery eyes and whimpered again.

“What happened to you, boy? Never mind; you can’t answer me. Listen, Jabber, I have to find Mac. She’ll know the vet’s number.”

The beagle’s tail gave a weak thump.

“The fucking bank foreclosed on us this morning. They took everything, and it’s all your fault.” Lucy’s voice above her, but muted. Out on the Widow’s Walk; must be.

Giulia ducked under the spiral staircase and peered up through its central opening.

Nothing, again.

This “nothing” business was getting on her nerves. She put a foot on the bottom step and climbed as silently as though she was sneaking up on that phosphorescent clown doll.

“We want what’s coming to us, dear Auntie.”

Clearer now. Even angry, Lucy supported her voice with her diaphragm like a well-trained actor.

“It’s not my fault Walter can’t keep to a budget or retain customers.” Her sentence ended in a sharp cry.

“Why didn’t you take the easy way out, you old bitch? You’re so into that psychic crap you should’ve turned tail and ran a week ago.”

Giulia reached the catwalk around the light. She raised the top of her head and peeked over the edge with one eye.

Lucy kept ranting, her thin legs pacing two steps left, two steps right and back again. “The gas leak and the fire would’ve scared off anyone with half a brain. But no, I had to keep playing the supernatural game and put up with spoiled food in our apartment for two whole weeks. After I moved it into your fridge even that damn fish air smelled good.”

Another set of legs was visible on the gallery outside, the feet in deck shoes without socks. That meant Walter was up there too, and Mac was probably cornered against the railing. The mostly sawed-through railing. And Giulia had sent Frank away on a useless hunt.

“Shut up, Luce.” Walter, whining. “Tell us where you hid the gold, Aunt Mac.”

Mac’s voice came steady, but weaker than usual. “There is no gold. Great-Grandpa made up that story to entertain us kids.”

“No!” A thump and another cry from Mac.

“Walter, you useless turd.” Lucy’s voice, speaking the way Giulia expected her to sound when she dropped her helpful face. “Your idea of supernatural terror wouldn’t scare a roomful of brats at a Chuck E. Cheese’s. I should’ve ignored everything you said to try. My old theater company would’ve haunted this place empty in a week and MacAllister Stone the Great Hotel Keeper would have had to bring out the gold to keep the bank from foreclosing. Just like you should’ve been able to do if you were a real man.”

Giulia slid onto the catwalk butt-first to avoid anything like the sound of a footstep. From that angle she could see Mac’s legs. Lucy and Walter were between Giulia and Mac, but they weren’t blocking the doorway to the gallery.

Okay. She could slip sideways through the opening behind those two. The odds of achieving that without Walter or Lucy hearing her: Slim to none.

The odds didn’t matter. She started creeping around the catwalk to the right, as Lucy and Walter were both angled slightly to the left.

“This is how it is, Mac,” Lucy said. “Marrying your nephew might have been one of my stupider decisions, but I’m going to drag him up with me, not the other way around. No self-important bank manager is going to take my things ever again. Since you didn’t die like you were supposed to three damn times already and leave your family treasure to us, you’re going to tell us where you hid it. My ball and chain here is going to get his feeble hands dirty digging it up, and then we’re taking it. I suggest you play nice, or I won’t stop him from bashing in your turkey-wattled throat.”

Giulia reached the doorway. Walter and Lucy faced three-quarters away from her.

Mac faced her full-on. A dark bruise discolored Mac’s left cheek. Blood dripped from her swollen mouth.

She looked alert and furious, but not frightened. Impressive, since Walter hefted some kind of wrench discolored with blood. From the size of the wrench, Giulia expected Mac’s teeth to be embedded in it.

Walter moved closer to Mac. “Don’t be stupid. Tell us where you hid the gold.”

Mac opened her swollen mouth and winced, but that was all. “Walter, for the last time, there is no secret pile of stolen gold coins.”

“Bullshit. Great-uncle Luke showed me a piece of it when I was ten.”

Mac shook her head and regretted it, from the look on her face. “He showed it to me too. He got it at an antique shop. I found the receipt.”

“You lying bitch!” Walter swung the wrench, but Lucy blocked it.

“Sweetheart, you’re not thinking.” Her voice dripped corroded honey. “Auntie Mac is playing a long game. She’s hoping someone will hear us talking and come see who’s up here. She forgot that she told her guests the lighthouse was off-limits. All those lazy morons are off playing tourist. It’s just Auntie Mac and her loving niece and nephew. And her loving niece has a year of menial labor to pay her back for.”

Giulia got to her feet during this speech, moving in slow motion. When she finished, she stood in the open doorway an arm’s length away from Walter and Lucy.

“You’re freaky, Luce.”

“You’re not used to women with brains, Walter. I sure as hell wouldn’t have screwed up the boat business and lost everything.”

Walter gripped the wrench tighter. “You’re a ball-buster, too.”

“I’m confident. There’s a difference. I want a real home and no debts and my very own children’s theater, and I’m going to do it with your family’s lovely gold. You’d know that if you’d ever listened to me instead of treating me like your other bimbos.”

“Christ, shut up.”

Lucy shook her head. “Someday I’ll figure out what I saw in you.” Her voice was rueful. “Oh, I remember. You told me about the Stone family gold when you got drunk on our first date. Which reminds me—” She grabbed Mac’s dislocated arm and yanked her up so they were face to face. Over Mac’s cry of pain, Lucy said, “Tell me where you hid it. Now.”

Giulia lunged out of the door and grabbed the wrench from Walter’s hand. Walter said “Hey!” and tried to grab it back. Lucy dropped Mac’s arm and dived at Giulia. Mac stumbled out of the way. Giulia dodged Lucy’s attack and tripped Walter as he made another snatch at the wrench. Walter fell against Lucy. Lucy overbalanced and crashed into one of the sawed-through railings. The railing cracked apart. Lucy’s momentum took her through the broken wood and off the Widow’s Walk. At the same moment, Frank leaped through the opening and tackled Walter. A wet
thud
cut off Lucy’s scream.

“Lucy! Lucy!” Walter shouted his wife’s name over and over.

Giulia dropped the wrench and went to help Mac. Frank dragged Walter back through the opening and onto the catwalk. Giulia got Mac onto her feet and blocked her view of the patio as she walked her through the doorway to the catwalk.

Frank wrestled Walter down the spiral stairs, Walter sobbing and struggling and running through a limited repertoire of curses. They banged and crashed all the way down.

Mac didn’t say a word as Giulia eased her downstairs. Mac’s good arm supported her dislocated one, but she winced with every step. When they reached the bottom, Giulia took out her phone to call 911, but heard the first siren before she input her password.

“Come on, Mac. We have to go out to the patio. The police are coming.”

Mac said nothing, but didn’t resist Giulia as she led her past the suit of armor and outside. Several adults in bathing suits crowded together on the grass at the far edge of the patio. Two more adults herded a handful of children away from the scene. The siren got louder. Another siren joined it.

Five feet away from the crowd, Gino lost his breakfast on the grass. Joel knelt next to him, pale and with closed eyes. Marion pushed through the crowd. When she reached the front of it she fainted in the best Method Acting tradition. A woman in madras plaid shorts and a tank top stepped over her for a better look at Lucy’s body.

Walter sagged in Frank’s hold, alternately sobbing and whimpering Lucy’s name. The sirens cut off. Two more young women ran to the front of the crowd and screamed in tandem. The same two EMTs as before ran across the lighthouse’s lawn. Two police officers came around from the opposite side of the patio and ran across the flagstones. The EMTs and the police skidded to a stop.

Only for a moment. Then one police officer herded the crowd back while the other stepped over a splash pattern of blood and brain matter.

One EMT felt Lucy’s wrist and set it down, then all three backed out between the rivulets of blood.

Swimmers abandoned the water to follow the line of people climbing the slope to the patio.

“You killed her, Mac,” Walter said, still blubbering. “If you’d lent me the money we wouldn’t have had to scare it out of you.” He tried to go to Lucy’s body, but Frank held him back. “You killed her, you cheap bitch. You killed her.”

More beachgoers ran onto the grass. So many camera phones
clicked
it sounded like hail hitting the patio stones. Anthony and Joel carried the groggy Marion off to one side. The texting teenage girl from earlier at the boat dock looked to be taking panoramic video until her mother snatched the phone out of her hands.

The older police officer walked over to Mac and Giulia. “Ms. Stone? What happened here?”

At that moment Solana appeared on the doorstep, still in the white skirt and Van Halen t-shirt. She raised her right arm, pointed to the top of the lighthouse, and intoned, “Dorothea Stone is avenged.”

Fifty

Everyone shut up. Mac lost her stupefied expression and glared at Solana. The police officers glanced at each other. Someone in the crowd giggled.

Solana stalked toward Lucy’s body, one bright gold fingernail aimed at it. “The spirits will not be mocked. Their power courses through me. They demand to be heard.”

The younger police officer left the EMTs and stopped Solana outside the perimeter of blood splatters.

“Ma’am, do you have information about what happened here?”

Solana didn’t even glance at him. “The spirit of Dorothea Stone protects this place. Those who disregard her warnings will suffer her fate.”

A dozen phones recorded everything. Joel held his own and Frank’s; Giulia recognized the Pittsburgh Pirates case.

“This will be on YouTube as soon as she stops talking,” Frank said.

Mac’s re-injured arm combined with Solana’s dramatics appeared to have cured Mac’s stupor. “That woman is a menace.”

“Think of the publicity,” Giulia said.

“What? ‘Come to Stone’s Throw, home of the murderous ghost?’ My email will be filled with canceled reservations. I’ll be bankrupt in a month.”

Solana capped Mac’s prophecy. “Heed this warning, all you who do not respect the Stone legacy.”

A teenage boy imitated Solana’s sepulchral voice: “You’re all doomed.”

The three boys with him snickered.

“I will tell you of Dorothea Stone and her eternal watchings in the night.” Solana swept her sunken-eyed gaze over the crowd. “Listen well, and keep in mind the fate of scoffers.” The gold fingernail aimed at Lucy’s body.

Giulia caught the eye of one of the EMTs and beckoned him over. “Mac’s arm was re-injured in the situation up there.”

The younger police officer joined them. “Coroner and backup coming down the driveway. Mac, as soon as you’re patched up I’ll need a statement.”

Giulia stepped forward. “I’m a private investigator here at Mac’s request.”

He took out a notepad and pen. “I’m ready when you are.”

Giulia told him about the vandalism and the apparent hauntings that started after the article in the local paper. While she talked, Solana shouted down the hecklers, her hair breaking its bonds of obedience and flying around her head like Medusa’s snakes. The coroner and extra police took over the crime scene, herding the crowd away, taking pictures, marking the outline of the body. At least three teenagers climbed on their friends’ shoulders to keep their videos going.

Frank was already giving his story to the older police officer. Walter had at last stopped whining and switched to blaming Mac for every job he’d failed at because she wouldn’t give him his share of her inheritance. The officer cautioned him twice but Walter kept right on venting.

Giulia repeated everything Walter and Lucy had said and done to Mac up on the gallery.

The EMTs brought out the gurney.

“I am not a helpless old woman,” Mac said. “My legs work fine. It’s my arm and my face that need fixing up. For that I’ll need my dentist and my regular doctor, not another trip to the emergency room.”

The buzzcut EMT said, “Mac, you really should have your face and arm x-rayed.”

The droopy mustache EMT said, “The insurance companies pay claims faster when they get information directly following an incident.”

“I want that woman off my property.” Mac pointed to Solana.

Giulia said to the police officer, “One second, please,” before she turned to Mac. “All those people are getting this mess on video. If you have the police drag Solana away, you could look like the bad guy suppressing great spiritual truths.”

Mac groaned.

“But,” Giulia said, “if you let her ramble until she winds down, all those videos will load to YouTube and link to Twitter with hashtags for Stone’s Throw.”

“Oh, yeah, Mac,” the mustached EMT said. “My sister in Altoona is into spiritualism big time. She called me to tell me about the two videos with your psychic friends already on YouTube. If she watches this performance she’ll drag my brother-in-law here for their next vacation.”

“See?” Giulia said. “You’re worried about losing clientele, but have you considered a subtle shift in the year-round focus of Stone’s Throw? The only Bed & Breakfast with a family ghost. Something like that.”

Mac appeared to study the bricks of the lighthouse. “That’s an idea.”

The younger police officer came over to them. “Mac, I have the statement of the private investigator you hired. Can you tell me what happened in your own words?”

Mac’s expression sharpened. “It’s simple. My housekeeper Lucy and my nephew Walter, who are married to each other, decided the legend of the family gold was real and tried to kill me to get their hands on it. Ms. Driscoll here saved my life today by surprising them where they’d trapped me up on the Widow’s Walk. When Lucy tried to attack Ms. Driscoll, she—Lucy—fell through the railing which either Lucy or my nephew had deliberately damaged earlier.” She glanced at the patio, where the coroner’s staff was bagging up the body.

“See the reward of those who refuse to believe!” Solana said from her new position atop the glass coffee table in front of the patio couch.

“That woman is standing on my furniture.” Mac took a step toward her, but stopped when Giulia put a hand on her good arm. “All right. Let’s go get x-rays. Giulia, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

The older officer said to Frank and Giulia, “Statements now?”

“Sure,” Frank said. “We’ll follow you there.”

Giulia said, “With Mac gone, there isn’t anyone to watch the house. Could someone in authority stay here until she gets back? All these gawkers could mean trouble.”

“Sure thing. Hey, Chris, can you hang here for a while in case the audience decides to grab souvenirs?”

The younger officer gave him a thumbs-up.

The backup police officers handcuffed Walter and got him into the back of their patrol car. The EMTs wheeled the gurney with the body bag out to the ambulance. Solana appeared to be winding down. Chris stationed himself at the door leading into the lighthouse. Two of the teenagers who weren’t recording Solana took a few steps toward the lighthouse, saw Chris, and found something interesting back toward the beach. A small group of adults and children wandered the grounds, taking pictures of everything. A seagull landed near the discolored patio stones and a woman shooed it away.

Frank and Giulia followed the EMTs out to the parking lot.

“I would like nothing but background check cases for the next two months,” Giulia said. “Maybe I’ll allow an asset search or two.”

Frank buckled himself in. “Those are the most boring jobs we ever had.”

“Bingo.”