The Ghost and Mrs. Mewer (A Paws and Claws Mystery Book 2) (16 page)

“I wondered where everyone was!”

We all swung around.

My old boyfriend, Ben Hathaway, loped through the doorway. His dimples flashed when he smiled at me. He would fit right in with the ghost hunters. He wore classic nerd glasses, with frames that were dark at the top and clear at the bottom. In spite of his studious appearance, he was actually fairly good-looking. He parted his dark brown hair on the right and wore it short. But like Holmes’s fiancée, he was a city person, hopelessly out of place in Wagtail.

Gingersnap wagged her tail and kissed his hand, which he promptly yanked out of her reach. Trixie backed away from him. She had no reason to do that—well, other than the fact that he thought I shouldn’t have kept her. But she couldn’t know that, could she?

“Ben!” I jumped up. “What are you doing here?”

He held up a hand in greeting to the others. “Hello. I had to drive up here for business.”

I would have been suspicious, but his very wealthy boss happened to have a fishing cabin in Wagtail. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities that Ben really did come to work.

I hustled him out to the reception desk. “Where are you staying?”

The dimples made another appearance. “Here.”

He said it with such cheery assurance that I thought he must believe he had a reservation. “But we’re booked.”

“I didn’t think I had to pay for a room. I figured I’d bunk with you.”

Oy. My head spun. “Ben, we broke up.”

“Not really.”

“Yes. Really. I packed up my life and moved here, remember?”

Two creases formed between his eyebrows as though he was perplexed. “You make a move sound so final. And anyway, we’re still friends. Right?”

Oh boy. I had never considered anything like this. Why hadn’t he called? “Well, I guess so.” It wasn’t as though we ended our relationship in a big snit. And I did have a spare bedroom in my apartment. “Okay, you can stay, but I have to warn you that I haven’t unpacked yet.” I handed him a spare key to my quarters.

Ben wrinkled his nose. “You’ve been here for days. What have you been doing?”

“Thanks, Ben,” I said sarcastically. He had just helped me remember why we broke off our relationship. I ignored the confused look on his face but I wondered how he knew when I had moved. “Did you go by my house?”

He flushed red. “Your tenant was moving in.”

Served him right. I hoped it shocked him to realize that I was gone. “Let me grab some books.”

I hustled into Oma’s office and hissed, “Did you have anything to do with this?”

Oma clutched her forehead with one hand. “Not the Ben again.”

“Don’t call him that!” I whispered. “Ben. Just Ben. Not
the
Ben.”

“Ja, ja. How long does he have to stay?”

Zelda grinned. “I’d forgotten how cute he is.”

“Ach, Zelda. Do not encourage her.”

I grabbed the books Aunt Birdie had given me and bustled out to Ben. “Follow me.”

When I unlocked the door to the apartment, Trixie, Twinkletoes, Casper, and Mrs. Mewer were waiting inside. They must have used the pet doors to scramble up the hidden stairway. Not one of them ran to Ben.

Trixie pulled her ears back and watched with worried eyes. Twinkletoes sat on top of the tallest packing box looking quite regal with her black tail wrapped around her white front paws. I hadn’t known that sweet face could be so aloof and superior. Mrs. Mewer looked on, the turquoise mouse at her feet. Casper must have picked up on Trixie’s concern, because even he wore an unhappy expression.

“Good grief, Holly! How many animals do you have? I thought there were only two.”

“The other two are guests of the inn.” I deposited the books on a bookshelf near the fireplace and showed Ben to the extra bedroom.

“This is much better. I can deal with this. Lucky you didn’t let that mess migrate into this room, huh?”

I bristled. “Look, Ben, I’m not going to apologize. I moved a couple of days ago, and it’s been busy around here. Besides, it’s not like I was expecting company, you know.”

“It’s a good thing I came! I can unpack your stuff while I’m here.”

I had to stop myself from screaming,
No, no, no!
Why was I so testy with Ben? He hadn’t done anything. Okay, so maybe he’d been critical, but I could take that. Ohhh, but he hadn’t done
anything
. He hadn’t called. He hadn’t given me a hand with packing or moving. He hadn’t shown up to say good-bye. And now he had appeared like he thought he was a white knight riding to the rescue on his steed. I took a deep breath and exhaled. “No, thanks. This is my home. I’d rather not have to call you when I can’t find my belongings.”

“Of course. How can you stand to live in this mess?”

“Why aren’t you staying at your boss’s cabin?” Oops. That certainly sounded rude. He didn’t seen to notice, though.

“He rents it out. Apparently all of Wagtail is sold out right now. For Howloween, I guess? I saw the big sign when I rode into town.”

Rode?
Hade he really said
rode
? I must be imagining things. “I need to take care of a little chore. Make yourself at home. There are drinks and snacks in the fridge.”

“I think I’ll go with you, at least downstairs. Your pack doesn’t appear very friendly.”

I turned to find the two dogs and two cats sitting in a perfectly straight line just outside the door. There was no growling or hissing, but even Ben hadn’t missed their wariness.

“Don’t be so worried, guys,” I said to them.

“Okay. You don’t think they’ll bite, do you?” Ben evidently thought I had directed my assurance to him.

“They can tell you don’t like them.” Good grief! Now I sounded like Zelda. “Get whatever you need and let’s go.”

“What’s the big rush? I thought you moved here for the quiet life.” He followed me into the sitting room.

“There’s a celebration at the cemetery tonight, and I need to take some flower arrangements over before my Aunt Birdie throws a conniption fit.”

“Ugh. There’s charming chore. Is it a memorial for the girl who was murdered?”

“How did you know about that?”

“Gosh, Holly, I read newspapers, you know.”

I didn’t imagine for one minute that any of his highbrow newspapers had picked up the story of Mallory’s death. “No. It’s a Howloween thing.”

“What is this?” asked Ben. He held out the odd ball that Trixie had found at the Wagtail Springs Hotel.

“Not a clue. Trixie was carrying it around.”

“It’s kind of cool. Look, the stem that juts out is concave so it sticks to things.” He popped it on his forehead.

It wasn’t the first time he’d done something childish and fun, but it always surprised me when it happened because it was so unlike him.

“Can I have it?” he asked.

“If it’s okay with Trixie.”

He leveled a worried look at me. “Holly, she’s a dog. Her brain is the size of a walnut.”

“Oh, I think she’ll know.”

As if to prove it, she jumped high in the air as if she intended to snatch it off Ben’s forehead.

“She’s attacking me!” He stumbled backward.

“She’s playing with you. You have her toy.”

“Yeah?” He plucked it off his forehead and pitched it across the room.

Trixie ran for it and played coy when he tried to retrieve it.

“Some weird dog toy,” he said.

Before leaving the inn, I checked to be sure Gingersnap, Trixie, and Casper were wearing Sugar Maple Inn collars so we could track them if they managed to take off.

I latched leashes onto them and set out on a leisurely stroll in the perfect weather.

Ben chatted about his boss and people we knew. He acted as though nothing had happened between us. It was sufficiently comfortable, and I soon found myself laughing with him.

We quickly found Catnip and Bark. Tiers of bright flowers surrounded the front of the store, making it hard to mistake it for anything else. Ben peeled off to pursue whatever he came for, and I entered the shop with the dogs. When I explained to the proprietor that I wanted
exactly
what Birdie Dupuy usually ordered for the family graves, he clapped his hands and said, “You must be Holly. I’m pleased to see that you take after your grandmother’s side of the family.”

Although he didn’t come right out and say he was glad I wasn’t like Birdie, I could read between the lines and grasped the implication.

“I’ve been expecting Birdie, so everything is ready. She’s rather impatient and never phones ahead.”

“Apparently I’ll be doing this from now on. So go right on making the arrangements just as she likes them, and I’ll drop by to pay for them and pick them up.”

He nodded. “Sounds like a plan. And I don’t mind telling you, I won’t be sorry to see your smiling face instead of cantankerous Birdie.”

He disappeared to the back for a few minutes and returned pulling a giant wagon filled with flowers.

“What’s this?” I had stupidly imagined there would be two or three little vases or bouquets.

“Birdie’s standard order.”

I thanked him, looped the three leash handles over one hand, and pulled the wagon with the other. The dogs walked like a team, three abreast, as though they had known each other forever. Six blocks later, I spied the cemetery across one of the main roads that ran along the outskirts of town. I dragged the wagon across the street and up the sidewalk that led to the charming old chapel.

The white building with a steep slate roof could have been in a children’s picture book. Arched stained glass windows flanked the front door. A round stained glass window adorned the pitch just under the roof, and a small steeple acted as a bell tower. I remembered the bells ringing on Christmases before my family moved away. Giant pine trees flanked the church and dark woods provided a quiet background behind it.

The cemetery was less appealing. An old black iron fence bearing decorative spikes on top surrounded it. No one had raked the leaves recently. The gravestones varied from tall and notable pillars to some so small they were little more than the size of a book. Seemingly out of nowhere, a dark cloud covered the sun. The day grew chilly and a wind kicked up. Leaves flew through the air like whispers. If Brian were there, he would surely tell me spirits were present.

The dogs lifted their noses to sniff the scents, and without warning, Trixie barked.

I eyed the dense woods behind the church and the cemetery. I didn’t see anyone or anything unusual. She probably smelled possums or squirrels. Casper appeared to be on alert. His tail was perpendicular to the ground, and his nose was quivering.

I turned my attention to the mass of flowers and lifted the first arrangement out of the cart. Golden sunflowers and chrysanthemums melded with pumpkin orange lilies, purple liatris spikes, and stunning gaillardia with their deep rust centers and bright yellow edges.

I’d played my hand wrong with Birdie after all, because I had no idea where the graves were, nor had I realized there would be so many arrangements. From now on, maybe we would make this our little get-together. I could pull the wagon for her, and she could count this as time spent with me. Maybe that would get me out of unpleasant Saturday night dinners.

I gazed at the grim cemetery. I didn’t believe in ghosts, so why did it creep me out? The specter of death, I supposed. Sucking in a deep breath of air, I entered the ancient gate with the dogs leading the way. “To the Dupuy graves, please, puppies.”

They charged ahead, sniffing the ground.

Okay, how hard could this be? I just had to look for graves with the name Dupuy. I concentrated on the names engraved on tombstones.
Richardson
,
Clodfelter
,
Pierce
,
Quinlan
—I recognized the names of local families as I walked. No Dupuys yet.

A fierce wind blew, whipping my hair into my face. It howled through the nearly leafless trees in the cemetery. I paused, trying to wipe my hair out of my face with my arm, when Trixie and Casper pulled away from me and ran, their leashes flying through the air behind them. Gingersnap wagged her tail and gazed up at me as though she wanted to run and have fun, too. Not a chance. I grabbed her leash.

“No!” I screamed. “No!” That was probably the wrong command in a hundred different ways. “Come, Trixie!” Who was I kidding? She hadn’t been to training yet. Maybe Casper had. It was bad enough to lose my own dog, but someone else’s? That was a nightmare!

“Come, Casper! Casper, come!” He paid me no attention at all. The dogs had stopped in the back corner of the cemetery. They pawed and sniffed and dodged in circles.

Relief flooded over me. The fence. They couldn’t go any farther.

I let Gingersnap join them and promptly found Elmer’s grave. I set the arrangement down. “I hope you’ll like these. They’re gorgeous.”

I fetched the other arrangements and closed the gate behind me lest the dogs lose interest in the back corner. It wasn’t until I had placed flowers on the third grave that I realized I had said something to each of my ancestors. Only half an hour ago, I had sounded like Zelda. “Now I’m as looney as Aunt Birdie.”

I shook my head and used both hands to clear windblown strands of hair out of my face. “Oh, this is ridiculous. There’s no reason to feel jittery or uneasy. It’s just wind, and there are no such things as ghosts.”