Cloudy with a Chance of Ghosts (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 4) Page 3

  “Sorry,” I said, not abounding in witty rejoinders at this point.

  “By my count, this makes five murders you’ve been involved with since you came to town. Would you say that was accurate?”

  I just glared at him. He shook his head and moved on.

  At least Roy—Lieutenant McKnight-- wasn’t with him. Though I was obviously going to have to face him soon. He would have his own disbelieving look to offer me.

  “Well, I guess that confirms the fact that they consider this a homicide,” Carlton said, looking morose. “Right here on the grounds of my own house.”

  He swore rather obscenely and I could hardly blame him. He went on complaining, but I wasn’t listening any longer. I was thinking about poor Keri Shorter. She’d seemed so ordinary, rather boring, not someone you would think needed killing. What could the motive have been? And who would want to kill her here during an art show? It didn’t make any sense.

  Okay, that meant things were not what they seemed. It was bound to come out that she had a secret life nobody guessed at. Had to be. What was murder usually about? Revenge, rejected love, cheating and money. Probably money most of all. Who’d been robbed by mousy little Keri? Who’d she been stealing from?

  Some people had gravitated toward the railing so that they could try to see what was going on at the crime scene, and at one point, I heard a sigh ruffle through the crowd, then a gasp. First Keri’s body was removed by the paramedics, and then Jagger was led off in handcuffs. By now we were all in state of permanent shock.

  I turned and found myself standing beside Celinda. I shook my head. “Have you known Jagger for long?” I asked.

  “Oh sure. He’s been a part of the art group that Carlton sponsors for the last few years.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  She shrugged. “Nice guy. Good artist. Though not as good as he thinks he is.”

  “And?”

  She gave me a sideways look, knowing just what I was asking. “A true born Casanova. Isn’t that obvious?”

  She walked off and I nodded to myself. That would be my assessment too.

  It took another hour for the rest of us to be questioned and asked to make short statements. As I left the beautiful house on the hill over the ocean, I looked back and saw the little Siamese cat face staring after me, those blue eyes so wise and knowing, it gave me chills.

  Chapter Three

  “What we’re going to do now,” I told Jill as I drove us back from the exclusive area where Carlton Hart had his mansion, “is stop by the house and grab Bebe and head on over to the Texas Bar and Grill for steaks and a good stiff drink or two. And we’re going to talk over what we need to do next.”

  Jill hesitated. “I really should get back to my coffee bar,” she began tentatively.

  “Nuts to that,” I said in my most decisive manner. “You’ve trained all those employees very well. It’s time to let them prove it to you. We need to talk.”

  She wilted under my superior logic and I felt a bit of pride. Maybe I should take the reins more often. Maybe I’m just brimming with leadership qualities I haven’t had the nerve to try out yet. Maybe…

  Maybe I ought to keep my mind on the real problem here—and that was Jagger. Was he the killer? I sure hoped not. But we were going to have to brainstorm our way through this stuff and the sooner we started the better.

  An hour later we were sitting in a leather-bound booth at the Bar and Grill, nursing our drinks and waiting for our steaks--and listening to morose country songs playing on the old-fashioned juke box. I was beginning to wonder if the Cherry Lane Soda Shoppe might not have been a better idea. At least there they played cheerful pop tunes.

  But I was glad to get Bebe out with us. Lately she always seemed to be locked in telephone conversations with Captain Stone or busy with her foreman, meticulously planning the new orchid growing house she was putting in.

  “I need to understand the full story from start to finish,” Bebe said, looking slightly dazed. And no wonder. It was a bit confusing to someone who hadn’t been there. “The full, complete story. Give it to me now.”

  And so we did.

  “Wow.” She still looked glazed, but at least she had some facts to work with. “So what made the police take him into custody? What did he do to draw attention to himself like that?”

  “When the body was found, he was coming in from that direction and he had her purse.”

  “Oh!”

  “He said she’d handed it to him to hold for her. But why would she do a thing like that?”

  “To leave her hands free for something else?” Bebe guessed.

  We both stared at her.

  “He said he thought she was visiting the ladies room.”

  “But she was really down the hill, in the orchard area, getting killed.”

  “So why would she hand him her purse?”

  No one had an answer and we didn’t want to say aloud what we were thinking.

  The steaks arrived, still sizzling and smelling wonderful. We dug in like ravenous beasts—well, that is probably overstating things a bit. But we were hungry, and in some ways, eating like that was a quick-fix reaction to our dejected feelings. And we had things to think about, things to discuss.

  “Bebe, you’ve met Jagger before at town functions,” Jill said anxiously as she sat back with a sigh. “What do you think? Could he…could he murder someone?”

  Bebe looked quizzical. “Sure. Anyone, at any given time, could commit murder, under the right circumstances. We’re all human, Jill. The need to protect ourselves and our loved ones comes first in our priorities.”

  We stared at her again. Neither one of us had expected something so fiercely elemental from our sweet and gentle Bebe.

  “Okay,” I said at last, giving her a sideways look. “Uh…have you ever met this Keri person?”

  She shook her head. “I looked her up after you called me, though. From what I could find, she’s been an FBI agent and a journalist, in that order.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “So she really was snooping around, as Jagger told me. He said she’d been in the area for a few days. That would imply she might have been involved in setting up for the art show.” I looked at Jill. “Know anything about that? Was she involved with the art show? Or with the art scene in general?”

  “I never saw her before today.”

  “Hmm. So what was her game? Was she after a story? Or following a crime lead? Who knows?”

  “The one thing I do know,” Jill said firmly, though her voice was wavering. “Jagger didn’t kill anybody. He couldn’t have.”

  She glanced at Bebe and I realized this was a declaration of trust that she meant to counter Bebe’s statement that anyone could do anything at any given time, depending on how they were motivated. She was standing by her man.

  I wanted to point out that she’d only known him for a few days and there was no way she could know what he could or couldn’t do, but I wanted to keep her as a friend more than I wanted to bring up unwelcome facts, so I bit my tongue and moved on.

  “Motives.” I slapped the flat of my hand down as I said the word, just to give it emphasis.

  “What about them?”

  “We need to make a list. Jagger first, since he was taken in for questioning. What could be his motives for wanting her out of the way?”

  Jill shrugged, looking blank. “I don’t think he really knew her, so why…?”

  But I was shaking my head. “Uh…Jill? I think he did know her.”

  Jill was staring at me. “What makes you say that?” she asked.

  It was all going to come out. I sighed. “Okay, I saw them together outside the sliding glass door area. They were arguing and he had a grip on her arm like he wanted to rip it off. When they saw me, he let go and she took off as though escaping from him in some way.”

  Jill looked like she was going to faint. “Oh. No. I…I didn’t know.”

  “He didn’t say anything about her?”

/>   She shook her head.

  “Too bad.”

  We sat brooding over that for a few minutes. I suddenly remembered what Jagger had said about how somebody ought to do something about Keri Shorter. Had he decided to go ahead and take that step? That gave me a chill, but I didn’t think I would bring it up to Jill right now.

  “We just don’t even have a thread to begin with,” I noted. “We need to find out more about her, more about what she does with her life. Where she lives. Who she hangs out with.”

  “Yeah,” Jill said, leaning her chin into her cupped hand. “I just talked to her for a few minutes, about nothing much.” She frowned, looking back. “Wait. I know one thing.” Her eyes lit up. “She told me she was here from the east coast and she was staying at the Bayside Hotel.”

  “Jill!” I laughed aloud. “Great. We ought to get over there right away and….” My voice trailed off as my enthusiasm waned. “And do what? We can’t call her room. No one will answer. How are we going to get in to take a look at her things?”

  Bebe was looking outraged. “You can’t do that in any case,” she said flatly. “You have no right to go looking at her things. And anyway, the police should be there by now. They’re not going to let you do it.”

  I stared at Bebe, suddenly realizing that her relationship with the Captain was going to be even more of a problem than I’d thought. Was she really getting that close to him—so that what he disapproved of me doing was going to be the same for her? Yikes. I was going to have to play my cards a little savvier it seemed.

  At the same time, I was itching to get going. We knew where Keri had been staying—what a gold mine that could be! How was I going to manage this?

  “Don’t worry,” I told my aunt breezily. “We’re not going to do anything illegal. Jill and I will just go over to the hotel and ask around about her. Perfectly on the up and up. Above board and all the other nice sayings I can’t think of right now. We’ll be on our best behavior.”

  I gave Jill a very bright smile. “Are you game?” I asked her.

  She hesitated, but she didn’t let me down. “Sure,” she said. “But I can only give this about half an hour. Then I have to get back to my coffee shop. I’m never gone this long.”

  We packed up and took Bebe home.

  “Don’t get involved in anything that’s going to get you into trouble,” she warned me.

  I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Mom,” I teased her. “I’ll be good. Promise!”

  “You’d better be.”

  I knew where the Bayside was located though I’d never been in it before. A tall, imposing structure, it dominated the area of the beach that it guarded. Night had come and the inky dark water reflected back the bright lights of the hotel in a slightly menacing manner. Or was that just the mood of the day? It was hard to be cheerful with a possible murder on our minds.

  “How old is this place?” I wondered as we parked and started toward the lobby.

  “Gosh, almost a hundred years, I’d say,” Jill said. “I remember it from when I was a kid. Relatives from San Francisco used to stay here.”

  I looked at her. Excitement was shivering across my skin and I wasn’t sure why.

  “Okay,” I said softly as we mounted the wide stairway. “What’s our game plan here?”

  She shrugged. “To talk to employees. Find out what they know. How long she’s been staying here. Things like that.”

  “What we really need is a look at her things. So how are we going to get into that room?”

  “How are we going to find out what room it actually is in the first place?” she scoffed at me. “That’s number one.”

  “Maybe we can take a peek into the records.”

  She shook her head. “They don’t write it down in a big old book like they used to you know,” she told me. “Everything’s on computer.”

  I looked around as we entered. The ceilings were high and the side drapes were velvet. It was beautifully appointed—very classy. But I was feeling a little strange. Something eerie in the wind, something flashing just out of sight—I was a little dizzy.

  I looked at the registration counter and suddenly got cold feet. How were we supposed to do this anyway? Jill was right. Everything was locked away from our prying eyes. We could go up and ask for the information, but I was pretty sure they were very careful about giving out anything these days. What were we going to do?

  A picture flickered in my mind. I saw the scene in Star Wars where Obi Wan Kenobe seems to speak in young Skywalker’s mind. “Use the force, Luke.” And I heard Aunty Jane’s voice in my own head. “Use your magic, Mele. Don’t be afraid.”

  Okay, here I have to pause for those who haven’t met my Aunty Jane before. There are no two ways about it—she’s a ghost. Though I don’t remember her from my childhood in Hawaii, Bebe does. Aunty Jane hung around with our Grandma Kadena a lot and Bebe was her special charge. When Bebe married Jimmy Miyaki and came to California, Aunty Jane came along to make sure all was well. They were very close until a little while after I arrived here at Miyaki Farms. Somehow, Bebe has lost the knack of seeing ghosts—and the funny thing was, I seemed to have taken it over from her. Now Aunty Jane was watching over me—and teaching me magic.

  So when I sensed her advice in my head, I clapped my hand over my mouth to hold back the uneasy laugh that was bubbling up, then took a deep breath. I did a part of the chant Aunty Jane had taught me as softly as I could, braced myself, and stepped up to the counter.

  “Hello,” I said brightly.

  The handsome young man smiled at me, then seemed to do a double take and smiled with a deeper sense of familiarity, leaning slightly toward me.

  “Can you help me?” I said, still using the cadence of the chant.

  “Yes,” he said, and it seemed he couldn’t release my gaze. “Yes, I can help you.”

  “Good. I would appreciate any information you can give me. I’m looking for a woman named Keri Shorter. What room does she have?”

  “Keri Shorter.” He punched in something on his keyboard, but he only glanced away for a moment. “Yes. Keri Shorter has booked an ocean view single. Room 555. Would you like an extra key?”

  I gulped. I could hardly believe how well this was working.

  “Y..yes. Thank you.”

  He put a card through the system that keyed in the room entrance code and handed it to me. “Anything else I can help you with?” he said, smiling deeply into my eyes.

  “Yes,” I said softly. “Take a break. You’ve earned it.”

  I turned toward the elevators and Jill was right behind me.

  “What on earth was that?” she whispered hoarsely. “What did you do? Hypnotize the poor guy?”

  “Sort of.” I giggled, feeling very near hysteria. “I can’t believe it worked. Jill!” I turned and took her by the shoulders and gave a little shake. “Jill, I can do magic. Shhh, don’t tell anybody.” And the elevator door slide open to let us aboard.

  The giggles abandoned me altogether once we got to the room. After all, a woman had died. We let ourselves in and began to look around. I had half expected to find the place swarming with detectives, or at the very least, a cop of some sort, but it didn’t look as though anyone else had been there yet.

  Everything was nice and neat. Her clothing looked just like what you would expect from having seen her, and it was hanging in a well-ordered way in the closet, or set out in wide drawers.

  “She takes care of things the way an accountant would,” Jill mentioned. “All in neat rows.”

  “Yes. And what we really want are her notebooks or journals, scraps of paper she might have written on, anything that might give us an idea of what her interests were in coming here to North Destiny Bay.”

  Jill gave me a look. “No Mele. Admit it. What we need to find is something that shows us what Jagger might have had to do with her. Any link at all.”

  She was right. But that was only part of the issue.

  “We’
re looking for anything that can help us find a motive for whoever killed her,” I said defensively.

  Jill nodded, unconvinced, and we searched for another few minutes, finding nothing at all that gave a hint of any kind.

  And then we heard someone at the door. Panic shot through me. The last thing in the world I wanted was to have Captain Stone—or even Lieutenant Roy—find me here. Without thinking, I slipped into the closet. Jill went for the bathroom. The handle rattled and then the visitor was inside the room.

  I held my breath, peeking out to see who it was, then recoiling in shock. It wasn’t the police at all. It was Carlton’s daughter Debbie, looking as nervous as we were.

  “Hey.” I stepped out into the room and she screamed. Luckily she also covered her mouth before the sound got really ear shattering, so it wasn’t a complete disaster. “How did you get in here?” I demanded.

  “How did you get in here?” she countered, and in all honesty, she had a point.

  “Secrets of the trade,” I said, knowing very well that didn’t mean a thing to anyone. “And you?”

  “I bribed a maid,” she said, more honest than I was.

  That deflated me a little. And it also made me like her more. I found myself sharing information in a way that was probably reckless---but oh well!

  “We’ve been looking for about ten minutes and we haven’t found a thing,” I told her. “What are you looking for?”

  A wary shadow flickered in her eyes and I knew she wasn’t going to tell me the truth. Then her eyes widened as Jill came out of the bathroom.

  “You too! Hey, isn’t it your boyfriend who’s been taken in for questioning?”

  Jill nodded, looking tragic. “That’s why we’re here. We’re trying to find out who the real killer is.”

  Debbie looked even more guarded. “So you don’t think he did it?”

  Jill’s blue eyes flashed. “I know he didn’t.”

  Debbie shrugged. “I don’t care if he did or not.”

  “Hey,” I said to her again, narrowing my eyes as I looked her up and down. “When I was on the terrace with your father, we saw you and Keri having an argument on the path below. What was that all about?”