A Fright to the Death Page 5

  “Let me take that, Mrs. Garrett,” Mac said. “I’m a police officer. Can I help?”

  “Police?” She scanned Mac’s face and handed him the lantern. “Yes, please. I . . . can’t believe it.” She stared, openmouthed, at Mac and swayed a bit. Jessica put an arm out to steady her.

  Mac turned to Wally. “Take everyone back downstairs to the lounge, please. Then gather the rest of the staff and wait for us there.”

  Wally nodded and turned toward the group to begin his crowd control.

  “What happened?” Jessica said. She sniffled and rubbed her eyes.

  “I went up to check on Clarissa and to bring her a lamp.” Linda pointed to the lamp Mac held. “She didn’t answer the door, but it was unlocked, so I went in.” She took a shaky breath. “I know she likes to take a bath in the evening and thought she might be in the bathtub and couldn’t hear me.”

  We waited while Linda gulped air and dabbed at her eyes with the hem of her sweater. She took a steadying breath and continued. “It was pitch dark in her room and I had to walk carefully.” She turned to Jessica. “You know how she is with her shoes. A person could turn an ankle walking through her minefield of shoes.”

  Jessica nodded and gave her a small, encouraging, if watery, smile.

  “I knocked on the bathroom door, and it swung open. I could see she wasn’t in the tub.” Linda looked at Mac. “It’s a large claw-foot tub and takes up most of the room. Then I saw her on the floor. She was still dressed—she must have slipped and hit her head.”

  Linda stopped and stared past us, back in the moment.

  “She wasn’t breathing.” She turned and buried her face on Jessica’s shoulder.

  Mac placed a hand gently on Linda’s arm. “I need to go secure the scene.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I said. I felt a rush of adrenaline at the thought of investigating a mysterious death. A sharp moment of guilt stabbed at my conscience. A young woman was dead. I was getting worse than Aunt Vi.

  Mac started to say something and then nodded.

  “Mrs. Garrett? Are you able to come back to her room and show us?” Mac asked.

  She nodded and clutched Jessica’s hand as we walked to the end of the hall. The lantern cast grotesque bouncing shadows on the walls. The climb up was steep and winding and reminded me of the previous November, when I had climbed a different twisting staircase while investigating a murder, not knowing what I would find at the top. That remembered sense of dread sobered any Vi-like excitement I had been feeling.

  We reached a small landing at the top of the stairs. Mrs. Garrett pushed the door open and a white streak tore out of the opening. I flashed onto Vi’s ghost story just as the streak let out a very feline yowl. I watched it race down the staircase and out of sight.

  “Oh! That cat is always jumping out when you least expect it,” Linda said, her hand clutching her chest.

  We stepped into the room. Weak light from the lantern cast flickering shadows on the furniture. My shoulders felt tight and my ears strained for any sound. Mac clicked on the large flashlight he’d taken from Wally and the spooky feeling began to dissipate.

  When we got to the bathroom door, Jessica hesitated, took a deep breath, and then nodded to us to proceed.

  Inside, it was just as Mrs. Garrett had described. The claw-foot tub stood in the middle of a partly circular room that would have been lovely on a sunny day. The old-fashioned cabinet and pedestal sink lined up along the wall, and a toilet hid behind a half wall in the corner.

  Clarissa lay on the floor between the tub and the sink. Her right leg was bent at an awkward angle and her eyes were closed. In the weak light from the flashlight and lamp, a dark glistening stain spread from underneath her head. She was completely still. I knelt down next to her and shone the flashlight on her face. Mrs. Garrett gasped and I heard her move into the other room. Jessica followed.

  “Mac,” I said quietly, “look.” I pointed to Clarissa’s neck. The faint bruises barely showed in the flashlight’s glow, but they were there. I put a thumb on her eyelid and lifted. The whites of her eyes were pink.

  “I don’t think this was an accident,” I said.

  Mac let out a gust of air.

  “Strangled,” he said. “Whoever hit her in the head made sure they finished the job.”

  I cleared my mind, as Neila had instructed, reached out, and touched Clarissa’s shoulder. I hoped I would get a sense of who might have harmed her, but all I felt was a surge of rage and fear. A wave of nausea spread and I felt dizzy. I pulled my hand away and took a deep breath.

  Mac knelt down next to me, his arm over my shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  I didn’t want to tell him I was experimenting with psychic solutions. “I’m fine . . . it’s just . . . she looks like she’s sleeping.”

  I put a finger under Clarissa’s jaw along her neck to check for a pulse, but we both knew I wouldn’t find one.

  8

  We regrouped in the bedroom. Mac asked Jessica when she thought the power would be back on.

  “It should have come on by now.” Jessica held her hands out and shrugged. “The generator works very well and can usually supply power for a couple of days. I don’t know why it hasn’t kicked in.” She put a shaky hand to her lips. “I had planned to go find our maintenance man after I dropped off the candles in the lounge.”

  Mac paced in front of the bathroom door. “Okay, we’ll need to call the local police and see what they want us to do.”

  “I thought you were a police officer,” Linda said.

  Mac stopped moving.

  “Yes, we both are,” he said, and gestured toward me. “But Clyde is on leave and I’m out of my jurisdiction. If the local police can get here, they’ll be in charge.”

  “I doubt anyone can get through tonight,” Jessica said. “The snow is still coming down and when René arrived this afternoon just before dinner, he said he almost didn’t make it.”

  “Surely we don’t need to call in more police,” Linda said. “We can make arrangements with a funeral home. . . .”

  Mac held up his hand. “I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that.”

  “Because it was an accidental death?” Jessica said.

  Mac and I exchanged a glance and I could tell he thought it would be best not to upset Mrs. Garrett further.

  “Police need to be notified whenever someone unexpectedly dies,” I said.

  Mac pulled out his cell phone and dialed. He looked at it again, and sighed.

  “I don’t have service. Clyde, is yours working?”

  Mine was the same—no service.

  “There’s only one cell tower near here and reception can be spotty,” Jessica said. “We have a landline tucked under the front desk.”

  “Let’s go try the landline,” Mac said.

  We trooped down the circular stairs. Mrs. Garrett had begun crying again, but it was more of a slow leak than a flood.

  “Maybe you can take your mom to her room and get her some tea or . . . something?” I said to Jessica.

  She nodded. “I’ll meet you downstairs.” She put an arm around Linda. “C’mon, Mom, let’s go.”

  Jessica took the lamp and led her mother off a side hallway that I assumed led to the family’s living area. Mac and I went to the front desk and found the phone. Mac dialed 911 and listened. He clicked the button on the phone and tried again. He groaned.

  “The landline is out as well?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure what to do.” He shook his head. “I don’t like the idea of leaving her body up there.”

  “We don’t want to disturb any potential evidence,” I said.

  Mac nodded and rubbed the back of his neck.

  He took a deep breath and blew it out. “Leave it to us to stumble onto a murder.”

  “Murder?” said a v
oice from behind us. “I knew it!”

  I turned, but it had to be Vi and her selectively tuned hearing.

  She hurried over to us, her candle flickering wildly. “She’s been murdered? Poor Clarissa!” She paused and lowered her voice. “Of course, she didn’t have many fans around here.” She looked from me to Mac.

  Neither of us spoke.

  “Unless . . . it was the ghost seeking her revenge!” Vi announced.

  “Ms. Greer, that’s ridiculous,” Mac said. “And dangerous. Don’t get everyone all worked up about a ghost story.”

  Violet was silent for a moment. “You’re probably right.” She nodded. “We’ve got to figure this out—there’s a murderer among us!” She turned to go back into the lounge.

  I grabbed her arm. “Vi, you can’t tell anyone. Let us handle it. We know what we’re doing.” I glanced at Mac for backup.

  “We wouldn’t want to let the murderer know we’re onto him, or her,” Mac said.

  “Oh, of course. But I can tell Rose, right?” she said to Mac and then turned to me, her finger already pointing in a menacing fashion. “You can’t suspect your own mother of murder?”

  “Shhh! No, I don’t suspect Mom,” I said. “But let’s just keep this between us until we can figure out what’s going on.”

  “Okay, got it.” Vi nodded, and then winked.

  I looked at the ceiling and hoped it was too dark for her to notice.

  “What’s going on?” Wally emerged out of the shadowy hallway.

  “Ms. Carlisle is definitely deceased,” Mac said.

  “Oh, no.” Wally put his hand up to his neck. “How did she die?”

  “We think she hit her head,” Mac said, “but we’ll have to wait until the police get here to examine the evidence.”

  “That could be a while,” Wally said. “The emergency weather radio says the snowstorm has stalled over Southwestern Michigan. If the phones are already out, it’s not likely we’ll get a call out anytime soon.”

  “How did you know the phones were out?” I asked.

  “I tried to call our head of maintenance earlier when you were upstairs. His assistant is down in the basement working on the generator, but I thought if we could call Gus, he could tell us how to fix it.” Wally leaned closer to me and whispered, “The new guy is not that good.”

  “Wally, maybe you and Vi can go back in the lounge and try to keep everyone calm,” Mac said. “I need to talk to Jessica and figure out what we’re going to do.”

  “Sure, okay.” Wally held his arm out for Violet and escorted her down the hall as if they were heading to dinner in an English country house.

  “We can’t leave a body sitting up there all night,” I said to Mac.

  He nodded. “I know. And I don’t know how to keep everyone out of there. I’d post a guard, but I don’t know whom to trust besides you, our mothers, and maybe your aunt. They can’t stand guard through the night.”

  “No, Vi is likely to see the ghost and send up an alarm . . . if she doesn’t fall asleep on duty.”

  “This sounds awful, but I’m tempted to wrap the body and put it out in the snow to preserve it. We know the general time of death is between the time we saw her before dinner and an hour later when the body was discovered.”

  I suddenly felt queasy and leaned my back against the wall. No matter how many times I had dealt with violent death, there was always a moment when it snuck up on me. Mac pulled me toward him and we stood, leaning against one another more than embracing, for a long moment.

  I took a deep breath and pushed away from him. “We should find Jessica and see if they have any large sheets of plastic—like a new shower curtain. Maybe there’s an outbuilding that we can put the body in that will keep it cold.”

  “Good idea,” Mac said. He grabbed my hand and squeezed gently.

  I followed Mac up the stairs, and back in the direction of the side hall where Jessica had led her mother. She turned the corner just as we got to the turret stairs doorway.

  “Oh, there you are,” she said. “I just got Mom calmed down. She’s resting in her room. Did you get in touch with the police?”

  “The phone lines are down,” I said.

  “Oh, I thought . . .” She put her hand to her head. “This is all so awful. Are the guests okay?”

  “We sent Wally and Violet in to keep everyone calm,” Mac said.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Jessica said.

  I stepped forward to touch her arm. “We’re so sorry, Jessica.”

  “Jessica?” The chef strode up to us down the dark hallway. “I just heard about Clarissa. What’s going on?”

  “She . . . she’s dead.” Jessica threw herself into René’s arms and sobbed.

  Mac shifted his weight and I could see him sizing up the situation.

  “How can she be dead?” René asked. “I just saw her at dinner.”

  Jessica said something unintelligible into his shoulder. His brow wrinkled and he rubbed her back.

  “Mr. Sartin, we need to secure the room and the body for when the police arrive.”

  Jessica winced when Mac said “the body.”

  “Police? I doubt anyone will get through tonight,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Jess.”

  “Is there an outbuilding or someplace we can store the . . . Clarissa . . . to keep her cold?” Mac asked.

  Jessica pulled herself together and nodded. “The garden shed would work. We just built it this past spring to store equipment. There’s plenty of room and it has a dead bolt.”

  “I’m sorry, but we think it would be best to put her out there,” I said.

  Jessica’s voice shook as she said, “Okay.”

  “We need to keep people out of her room so no one can interfere with evidence,” Mac said.

  “Evidence?” René said.

  “We didn’t want to further alarm Mrs. Garrett, but we think she was murdered,” Mac said.

  Jessica gasped and René’s mouth dropped open. Jessica leaned toward him and he slipped an arm around her shaking shoulders.

  * * *

  We sent the knitters off to bed with promises of more information in the morning. Wally, René, Jessica, Mac, and I went back up to Clarissa’s room with a new shower curtain and the largest flashlights Wally could find.

  The room felt still and silent when we entered, as if it held its breath. I had sensed this in other sudden-death cases. The vacuum left behind was palpable. Mac and I got to work quickly. We had both been trained in crime scene protocol but Mac had far more experience. He took the lead and photographed the body as best he could in the poor lighting conditions. René had provided us with plastic kitchen gloves and paper bags. We examined the area around her body carefully and bagged anything lying nearby. We found an earring that matched the one in her left ear not far from the body, a used bandage under the front foot of the large tub, and a few stray hairs that appeared to match Clarissa’s length and color.

  The lack of electric light hampered our efforts. Mac and I did the best we could to collect items near the body with the idea that we would return during the daytime to better examine the rest of the room.

  We laid the curtain on the floor next to Clarissa, and Mac and René carefully lifted her onto one edge. They gently rolled her in the shower curtain to protect any evidence that might remain on her body, under her fingernails, or anywhere else on her person. As they shifted her over, a metallic clang sounded just underneath her. Wally shined the light on the ground and a reflective glint winked at us. I bent down to examine the piece of metal.

  I knew immediately what it was and fought the urge to touch it to get more information. It was an elongated U-shape with one end longer than the other. I had seen Vi use something like it to do her knitted cables.

  “Jessica, was Clarissa a knitter?” I asked.

&nbs
p; Jessica had been standing just outside the bathroom while we worked and she stepped inside. “No, not a chance. She mocked Isabel any chance she got.”

  I pointed to the metal U without touching it. “Isn’t that a cable needle?”

  Jessica bent down and looked. She took in a sharp breath. “Yes, it’s . . . it’s a cable needle.” She stood back quickly as if to put some distance between herself and the needle.

  “Do you know who it belongs to?” Mac asked.

  Jessica shook her head quickly and stepped back out into the bedroom.

  Mac slid it carefully into a small paper bag and put it with the rest of our evidence bags. He directed Wally and René to lift Clarissa and we all trooped out of the bathroom and down the stairs after them.

  I took up the rear and after we got down the stairway the guys moved ahead to bring the body out to the shed. I found Vi lurking in the shadows around the corner from the staircase.

  “Vi, what are you doing here?” I hissed and hoped Mac was too busy to notice.

  “I just wanted to see if I could help,” she said. “Where’s that cat? I saw her race out of the stairway when you guys went upstairs the first time. She might be able to tell us something about what happened.”

  Vi had been known to interview dogs, cats, and even woodland creatures to try to solve a mystery.

  “I didn’t see the cat upstairs,” I said. “Let’s get to bed and we can look for her in the morning.” I steered her back toward “our” room and pushed her through the doorway.

  I told her I would be right back and used my own waggling finger to threaten. Mom began her interrogation of Vi as I swung the door closed.

  I got to the back door just as the guys stepped outside with Clarissa’s plastic-wrapped corpse. Jessica stood in the doorway shivering. Her hands shook as she pulled her cardigan more tightly across her shoulders.

  “They said we could wait here,” she said. “Kirk, our maintenance guy, has the keys and I didn’t want to . . . see her there. In a shed.” She scrubbed at her eyes, smearing her mascara into a raccoon mask.