The Legend of Sleepy Harlow (19 page)

And we didn’t.

For the next few hours, snug in the garage, where earlier in the day one group of workers had covered the windows with dark paper and others had set up the equipment and a refreshment station for coffee and snacks, we watched EGG go through the motions.

Or at least we tried.

There were only so many times I could hear so many EGG-head duos ask the same questions—“What is your name?” “Why are you still here?” “What are you looking for?”—to the empty air in the silent house before I thought I’d lose my mind. I left the experts I’d paid so well to do their thing and motioned Hank and Kate over to a table and chairs in the far corner of the garage.

“I hope you’re planning on doing something soon.” Hank rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Watching ghost hunting is a lot like watching paint dry.”

“You got that right!” I pushed a dish of mixed nuts in front of him, and he happily crunched away. “I’m thinking another ten minutes,” I told Kate. “Are you ready?”

I’d warned her to dress for the chilly weather, and she tugged her gray scarf a little tighter around the collar of her black parka. “I don’t know. What if it doesn’t work? What if . . .” She dared a look at Hank, who was so busy picking out the peanuts so he could concentrate on finding the almonds and the cashews that he didn’t pay any attention. “What if we’re no closer to any answers by the end of the night than we are now?”

“Then we’re no worse off.”

“Hey, Bea!” Aaron waved me over. “That guy, Dimitri . . .” He pointed to one of the TV screens. “He’s finally in your parlor and he’s all alone. Want to start?”

I told him I did.

Kate, Hank, and I gathered behind Aaron and held our collective breaths, and Aaron signaled to the sound technician, and don’t ask me exactly what they did or exactly how they did it, but these guys made magic happen.

Just as Dimitri finished asking, “Is anyone here with me?” a sound like a whisper on the wind drifted through my parlor.

“Sandusky,” the soft voice said.

Dimitri’s head came up. His shoulders shot back. He had a digital tape recorder in one hand, and he stuck it out a little farther into the darkness. “What did you say? Say it again so I know you’re here. Can you repeat what you just said?”

This time, the voice was a little louder, a little clearer. Just as the sound tech and I had agreed it would be.

“Sandusky.”

“Sandusky?” Something told me Dimitri was expecting a message with a little more unearthly oomph. “Is that what you said? Did you say ‘Sandusky’?”

“Sandusky.”

Dimitri spoke into the tape recorder. “Just so we double-check this when we listen to the evidence, guys, I’m in the parlor and I’m getting a disembodied voice. I clearly heard it say ‘Sandusky,’ and Sandusky is a city over on the mainland. Did you live in Sandusky?” he said, this time to the blackness around him.

“You went to Sandusky.”

I swear, even on the TV screen, I saw every ounce of blood drain from Dimitri’s face when he froze right there next to my fireplace.

I figured that would be the reaction we’d get. Just like I figured that Dimitri might be shocked enough to call in one of the other investigators. Or walk out of the room.

Before that could happen, I signaled that it was time for the
pièce de résistance,
and once again, the technicians did their hocus-pocus.

There on the screen and right before Dimitri’s eyes, a ghostly light shimmered in the darkness.

“Look at that!” Even Hank, who’d been briefed about what was going to happen and what we hoped to accomplish, couldn’t contain his excitement. He darted closer to the screen and pointed. “What the heck? What the heck is going on? Bea, you’re not telling me—”

“It’s all smoke and mirrors, Hank,” I reminded him, because honestly, he looked so amazed, I thought the poor guy was going to keel over. “It’s done with cameras and computers. Like the special effects in a movie or in a stage performance. Just watch, Hank. If I know Dimitri, he’s not going to pass up an opportunity like this to communicate with the Other Side.”

Kate grabbed my arm and squeezed so tight I was pretty sure she was going to cut off my blood supply. “And he’s going to admit that he killed Noreen?”

“That’s what we’re hoping for,” I told her. “We know he left the house after they all got back from the winery. We know he wasn’t in his room that night. We know he went to the mainland. Hank and I . . .” I looked his way. “We wondered if maybe Dimitri was trying to establish some kind of crazy alibi.”

“Or to ditch evidence,” Hank added. “Like the plastic we figure he moved the body in.”

The hazy image on the screen came into sharper focus, and I have to admit, even though I knew it was as phony baloney as it gets, my heart beat a little faster. I couldn’t help myself—I thought of poor Ichabod Crane and mean ol’ Brom Bones. If he’d had today’s technology, Brom wouldn’t have had to dress up like the Headless Horseman to scare the bejeebers out of Ichabod.

I could only imagine how Dimitri felt seeing the holographic image take shape right before his very eyes. Especially when it raised a not-quite-solid arm and pointed right at him.

“Sandusky.”

Even though I’d come up with the plan and the script the technicians were using in our little ruse, the single, whispered word shot chills up my back.

Dimitri nodded. “I . . . I was there. Last week. But why—”

“Noreen’s dead!” I had asked the technicians to arrange a ghostly voice that sounded convincing, but I had never expected one that could crawl through my bloodstream and leave ice in its wake. When Kate clung to my arm even tighter, I was actually grateful. “Noreen’s dead and you”—there was the pointed hand again, and the image wavered—“you were not here.”

Dimitri gulped so hard, I saw his Adam’s apple bob. The light was poor, but I swear, tears glistened on his cheeks.

For a second, I actually felt guilty about manipulating his emotions like this.

Until I reminded myself that we were out to catch a killer.

“I . . . I had to leave,” Dimitri stammered. “I couldn’t stay.”

“Because of . . . Noreen. Noreen’s murder.” The last word trailed away like the final keen of a banshee’s call.

“No.” Dimitri stepped forward, and since we couldn’t let him get too close to the apparition, the technicians made the ghost fade away.

For a second, Dimitri stared at the empty air in front of him in stunned silence.

Then the ghost appeared again, this time over near the ceiling in the far corner of the room.

Just like we did, Dimitri watched in amazement as streams of light twirled and coalesced into a person-shaped mass. “You ran away,” the eerie voice crooned. “You killed her and ran away.”

Dimitri shook his head. “Did Noreen tell you that? It’s true.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“It’s true I wasn’t here at the house,” Dimitri continued, and that heartbeat of mine settled right back down. “But not because of her. Not because of Noreen. It was because of my allergy. A mold allergy. I had an attack at the winery, and it was a bad one. I had to go to the mainland to an ER to get treatment.” He brushed his hands over his cheeks. “Don’t you see?” he asked what he thought was a genuine entity. “I can’t tell anyone. If the rest of the crew finds out . . . if the viewing public hears that I have a mold allergy. Ghosts . . . I mean you . . . I mean some of you . . . some of you hang out in some pretty nasty places. If anybody finds out I have a mold allergy, I’ll be the laughingstock of the paranormal community.”

“Sounds like he has an alibi.”

Hank didn’t need to tell me. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, and I kicked the leg of the closest chair and Aaron turned off the ghost. Together, we watched the image fade, along with the excited expression on Dimitri’s face.

“It didn’t work.” Kate was crying, too. For all different reasons than Dimitri had been. She buried her face in my shoulder. “I thought this was going to clear me, and it didn’t work.”

“We’ve still got Jacklyn,” I reminded her, and made her stand up so she could watch the screens. “Look. She and Rick are in suite one upstairs.”

We watched them do a quick turn around the room. While Rick took what he called “base readings” to search for spikes in the room’s electromagnetic energy, Jacklyn perched on the side of the bed.

“How long did Dimitri say we had to do this?” she asked.

Rick checked his meter. “I dunno. A couple more hours. I’m not getting anything in here.”

“You could be,” Jacklyn cooed and patted the bed beside her.

“Oh my gosh!” Kate and I screeched at the same time. “She’s not—?”

She was. Rick joined her on the bed, and Jacklyn giggled. It was a deep, throaty sound.

“Hey, keep it down,” Rick said. “We don’t want Dimitri to hear.”

“Dimitri doesn’t have a clue.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “It will be just like the other night after that producer left, the one who wants me to be in that movie of his. You and me, Rickie, all night long.”

They kissed, and I swear, I couldn’t signal to Aaron fast enough. “Turn off that camera!”

He did, and we all let out a collective breath of relief.

“So . . .” Hank hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Somebody want to tell me we didn’t just learn what I think we all just learned?”

He wasn’t talking about Jacklyn and Rick.

And I knew I was the somebody who was responsible for this whole thing, so I was the somebody with my heart in my throat and my hopes dashed who had no choice but to say, “What we just learned is that both Dimitri and Jacklyn have alibis for the time Noreen was killed. Neither one of them is our murderer.”

  18  

S
o Dimitri didn’t meet Jacklyn at the ferry the day we found Noreen’s body. Jacklyn met Dimitri at the ferry.

I knew this for a fact, because as unethical, underhanded, and so against the unwritten innkeeper rules as it was, I went through both Dimitri’s and Jacklyn’s rooms the next morning when they were down at breakfast. I found the paperwork from Dimitri’s ER visit in Sandusky. It said he’d checked out of there at ten in the morning. I also found Jacklyn’s ferry receipt that showed she was, indeed, on the island the night of the murder. I would have done the happy dance if her time weren’t accounted for, first at Barry’s Bar, then at the hotel downtown. I found a receipt for that, too. No, it didn’t specifically say she’d been there with Rick, but it gave a room number and said there were two occupants. After what I’d seen (and nearly seen—yikes!) on-screen the night before, I had no doubt who she’d been with or what they’d been up to.

I will admit, this was the most miserable day-before-Halloween morning ever.

My plan was a major bust.

One of my best friends was still a murder suspect.

Thanks to the hours and hours I’d spent filling in the blanks of Marianne’s manuscript, I now had only a couple small things to check. But even that didn’t cheer me, I told myself, tapping the pages into a neat pile—I suspected Marianne would see through my attempted smoke screen the moment she read it.

I was doomed.

Kate was doomed.

I had failed.

I went through the motions, stacking Marianne’s manuscript atop the big mailing envelope she’d originally brought it over in and getting the house settled for the day. It was almost noon when the phone rang.

“Bea.” Kate’s voice vibrated with something more than excitement, and in response, a shiver crawled up my spine and snaked over my shoulders. “You need to get over here to the winery. I think . . .” I wasn’t sure if the gurgle I heard was one of terror, delight, or heartbreak. “I think I’ve caught the murderer.”

I confess, she caught me flat-footed.

I stammered something about how she should call Hank instead of me, but Kate would have none of it.

“You’ve got to get here, Bea. Now.”

When Kate has that kind of mettle in her voice, it’s impossible to argue.

I got in my car and got over to the winery as quickly as I could.

Kate met me at the front door. “I was in my office,” she said, without even bothering to say hello, “and I just happened to glance up at the security camera monitors. Bea, I can’t even . . .” She gulped, and her eyes filled with tears. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

“Well, the first thing you’re going to do is explain.”

She shook her head and grabbed my arm. “You’re going to have to see it for yourself to believe it. Hank told me about that camera the cops found. He told me how it was found in the room where you found Noreen’s body. That’s got to be . . .” She gulped. “That’s got to be what the murderer is looking for.”

Without another word, she hauled me through the tasting room to the fermentation room and beyond. When we got to the warehouse, she announced to the workers in there that, as of that moment, they were officially on break. Once they had cleared out and she had shut the warehouse door behind them, she closed in on the door that led into the old storeroom where I’d found Noreen’s body.

“There’s no other explanation, is there?” she asked, and since she must have known I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, I guess she was talking to herself. “Only a guilty person would come back to look for the camera, right?” Like she’d just remembered I was there, her gaze snapped to mine. “Right?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m confused. If you’d just tell me—”

“No.” She pointed to the storeroom door, and I saw that it was open the tiniest bit. Of course, that made sense if the person inside knew that the storeroom door only opened from inside the warehouse.

“In there,” Kate whispered and motioned. “The killer’s in there.”

I neared the door and bent an ear. There was someone in there, all right—I could hear footsteps and see that the someone in question hadn’t turned on the lights. Even as I watched, the beam of a flashlight arced over the far wall. I reminded myself how the room was laid out, what was in there and what it all looked like, and before I could talk myself out of what I shouldn’t have talked myself into in the first place, I threw open the door and turned on the lights.

The person on the other side of the room froze and stared at me.

I stared right back.

That is, before I found my voice and stammered out, “Chandra!”

*   *   *

By the time we got to Kate’s office, Kate was in tears, Chandra was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe, and I was so completely befuddled, I was sure my head was going to explode.

“Sit.” I deposited Kate in one chair and Chandra in another, then hurried over to the mini fridge near Kate’s desk and grabbed two bottles of water. “Drink,” I said, handing out the water and waiting until both my friends finished. It was only then that I cast an eagle eye in Chandra’s direction and demanded, “Explain.”

“I . . . I . . .” Chandra pulled in breath after unsteady breath. “I came to the winery and I told the people up front that I had to see Kate and they know me and . . . and . . .”

“And instead of going to Kate’s office, you ducked into that back storeroom.” I finished the thought for Chandra, and who could blame me. If I waited for her to stop stammering and start making sense, I was going to grow old sitting there.

Chandra’s head bobbed. “I had to get back there and I couldn’t tell anybody and—”

“I was right. You were looking for the camera you left behind.” Kate’s hand flew to her throat. “You killed Noreen.”

The tears started again. From both of them.

Before I drowned, I demanded that everybody keep quiet. “Deep breaths, Chandra,” I advised her. “Start from the beginning.”

“The beginning. Sure.” I swear, Chandra’s cheeks were the same color as the grinning ghost on her black sweatshirt. “I came because I had to, you see, because somebody was going to find it and when they did, they were going to know I was here and then Hank would find out and then—”

Chandra’s voice got louder and more panicked by the syllable, and there was no use trying to talk above it. I held up a hand to stop her.

“Somebody was going to find what?” I asked her. “Are you talking about the camera?”

She drew in a long breath and let it out slowly, then reached into her pocket. She came out holding one of the dangling beaded witch hat earrings I’d seen her wear just a week earlier. “I lost it,” she said, her voice wooden. “In the storeroom. The night of the murder.”

My heart stopped. I swear it did. When it started up again with a bang, I flinched. “Chandra, are you saying what I think you’re saying? You . . . you were there?”

Chandra looked down at the floor, and when she looked up again, her cheeks were wet with tears. “I don’t know anything about the camera you’re talking about, but I knew I lost my earring. I knew if Hank found it he was going to figure out I was there. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“But Hank didn’t find it,” I said. Chandra still held the earring. The way her hands shook, the beads caught the light and winked at me when I asked, “It was in the storeroom?”

“In a sort of crevice. It must have gotten kicked there when—”

“When you killed Noreen.” Kate gasped. “Oh my goodness, what are we going to do? Don’t worry, Chandra. I’ll call my attorney. We’ll raise the bail money. We won’t let you go to prison.” She listened to her own words and gulped. “But you have to, don’t you? You deserve to go to prison. You killed Noreen!”

Chandra’s mouth twisted. “I did not!” She leapt out of her chair and paced to the window, and I couldn’t help but notice that the oil lamp was there. Chandra stomped her way back in the other direction. “How can you say that?” she asked Kate. “How can you even think I’m the killer!”

“But you were there.” Kate popped out of her chair, too, and stood toe to toe with Chandra. “You were looking to recover evidence. You said you lost the earring the night of the murder, and—”

I stepped between them, nudging them farther apart. “And something tells me there’s more to this story than Chandra’s telling us. Go ahead.” I motioned her back into her chair. “And this time, start from the real beginning.”

Chandra settled herself, and while she was at it, I got Kate to sit back down, too.

“Chandra.” I took my own chair. “What were you doing in the storeroom the night of the murder?”

“I was supposed to be . . .” Chandra heaved a breath. “Noreen thought . . .” She pulled at her hair. “Noreen wanted me to pose as Sleepy Harlow. You know, so she could get a video of the ghost.”

I wasn’t surprised by the subterfuge. After all, I knew Noreen was planning something. The bit of video Hank found proved that. What did amaze me was Noreen’s choice of a coconspirator. “Why?” I asked Chandra.

She spent a few seconds breathing hard, steeling herself to tell us the story. “It started last year,” she finally admitted. “When the ghost hunters were here on the island. Noreen approached me. She said she wanted me to do something for her. Something that would help her establish herself as a leader in the paranormal community.”

“You were the ghost in that video?” I stared at Chandra in stunned amazement. “Why?”

She shrugged. “I thought . . . Okay, I admit it, it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but Noreen, she told me that if she could just get some kind of evidence, then she’d get her TV show, and once she had her TV show, she’d have more money to investigate and more equipment and more backup. And she said once that happened, then she could find the real Sleepy because she said she believed Sleepy’s ghost really is on the island, just like I believe. And she convinced me that’s what she was really looking for, and if only I’d help . . . just that one time . . . if only I’d help, then she’d get all the resources she needed and then she’d really be able to find Sleepy’s ghost.”

I thought back to that snippet of video. “Then this year when she came back, she asked you to do it again.” Chandra’s fresh tears told me all I needed to know. “You refused. That’s what you two were fighting about.”

Chandra’s jaw dropped. I promised myself I’d explain it all to her later. For now, there were more important things to worry about. “When you told her no—”

“I realized she never really wanted to find Sleepy. Not the real Sleepy. All Noreen wanted was to get famous. That’s why I said no, Bea. I met her in the storeroom, just like I said I would, and that’s when I told her I wasn’t going to do it. That’s when I lost my earring, too.” Chandra tucked the little witch hat in her pocket. “I thought for sure if Hank found it, he’d figure out I was there and he’d think I was the killer. I was so worried, I didn’t know what to do. He’d ask me if I was angry at Noreen, and I’d have to admit I was. She lied to her investigation team. She lied to the public. But I . . . I swear I didn’t kill her.”

“No, but someone else sure did.” Again, I thought about that video. “She convinced someone else to play Sleepy that night,” I told both Chandra and Kate. “And that someone is the murderer.”

“Well, it wasn’t me.” Chandra’s shoulders shot back.

“And it wasn’t me.” Kate sat up a little straighter.

“And it wasn’t Jacklyn or Dimitri,” I grumbled.

That left me right back where I started from.

*   *   *

“Watch out for snakes!”

I was about to hop off the
Miss Luella
, and I froze, one hand on the railing, the other one flying automatically to my heart. Yeah, like that might actually stop the sudden, loud clattering from inside my chest.

“Snakes.” As if I hadn’t heard her—believe me, I had, which would explain why my knees were knocking together like maracas—Luella came up beside me and pointed toward the shoreline. “They like to hide in the rocks,” she said. “There. There. There.” Her finger arced over the rocky outcropping where I was determined to go ashore. Now that she’d pointed them out, they were easy to see, Lake Erie water snakes (
lews
, some of the islanders call them), sunning their fat gray bodies in what little warmth the afternoon sun provided. “You’ll probably run into a whole bunch of ’em. Not to worry.” Luella clapped a hand to my shoulder. “They bite, but they’re not poisonous.”