If Mashed Potatoes Could Dance (24 page)

The other bit of bad luck was that we didn’t have time to confer and formulate a story before we had to attend to Charlene, who was in shock, and Vivienne, who had fainted. We revived Vivienne and maneuvered everyone inside, where Jake and I did our best to lie in tandem.

“No, no, I don’t think you really saw a figure appear,” I said.

“Then what did we see?” Vivienne, conscious and sitting upright on a kitchen stool, slammed her glass of lemonade
down on the butcher block, causing some of the liquid to slosh over the sides.

“I think it was just a play of light,” Gram said at the same time Jake said, “A projection of something.”

Vivienne and Charlene looked at Gram and Jake.

“Which one?” Vivienne said.

“Both,” I added helpfully.

“How’s that?” Vivienne asked.

“Well, I…”

Jake scooted off his stool. “Ladies, sometimes light just does strange things. You’d already kind of freaked yourselves out about the cemetery at night. Have you seen the Sally Swarthmore show at the courthouse?”

They both nodded.

“Today. It was great. The actress who portrayed Sally was amazing,” Charlene said.

Great.

“There you go, power of suggestion and everything.” Jake smiled.

Charlene and Vivienne looked at each other.

“I don’t think either of us said the ghost looked like Sally,” Vivienne said.

Jake took a sip of his lemonade to give him a minute to think. He said, “Well, Vivienne, when you came to you said something about Sally Swarthmore.”

“I did?”

“You did,” I said firmly.

Vivienne blinked. “Oh, well, we did just see the show today,” she said to Charlene.

“But we both saw the same thing out there,” Charlene said as she pointed.

Jake and I looked at each other. We didn’t know where to go next.

“Happens all the time,” Gram said as she poured more lemonade. “This is Broken Rope, Missouri, friends. Strange and surprising things happen here all the time.”

Sally laughed and told me she’d meet me at my house in the morning, but she was looking forward to roaming around without the ax and we just weren’t exciting enough anymore to stick around. She said that her trick hadn’t left her feeling the least bit like she might be leaving soon, and she didn’t want to be cooped up in the kitchen. Though, she was very pleased that she’d finally been able to haunt someone.

“Could I ask you ladies some more questions?” I said. I really did have more questions, but I also hoped to change the subject before they thought about it further.

“Sure,” Charlene said.

“How does everyone in your tour group get along?”

“Oh. Well, we’ve been touring together for many years. I wouldn’t say we love each other, but we travel well together, I suppose.”

“Except for the Carlisles, right? You mentioned them earlier. They’re new to the group, right?”

“Yes, well, sort of.” Charlene looked at Vivienne, who shrugged. “We didn’t mean to lie to you earlier, we just didn’t remember the details offhand. Georgina is new to the group. Greg had been with us five years ago, though. He used to come with his first wife. He behaved so differently with each of them that I kind of forgot about his first time with the group.”

I didn’t have the exact numbers to do the math, but “five years” ago would have probably put Greg either in his late thirties or early forties.

“This is a retirement tour, right, but not ‘retirement’ in the way it means for most people who have to work until they’re in their sixties or so and then relax. It’s more about just being well-off?” I said.

“Yes, well, Robert’s old and a couple others are in their early sixties, but we’re wealthy people and many of us achieved that wealth when we were very young. It sounds way too arrogant to call ourselves ‘rich foodies with lots of extra time,’ so we just say we’re retired. We are, mostly. Some of us still work, but we all are in control of our own schedules. We don’t have to do anything we don’t want to do.”

“That makes sense,” Jake said. He had a fortune he didn’t like to flaunt either.

“Who was Greg’s first wife?”

“A woman named Austin—that was her first name. Don’t know her last name other than when it was Carlisle. She was a Texan with an attitude. She’s actually the person who originally organized the group. She and Greg divorced and they quit coming, but Greg rejoined last year with his new wife. We stayed in touch with Austin for a while, but we haven’t talked to her in years.”

I was abrupt and awkward when I said, “Would Austin have ever had any reason to hold a grudge against Greg? He was bold enough to join the group his first wife had started with his second wife.”

“A grudge as big as Texas?” Charlene laughed. “No, as far as we know she still gets half of Greg’s hard-earned money and couldn’t care less about who he’s now married to. Or did get half. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so jovial. It’s hard to accept he’s dead.”

“I’m sorry, too,” I said. I bit at my lip a second. “Did you
hear about a missing wallet or stolen credit cards from people in your group? Anything?”

“No.” Charlene and Vivienne looked at each other again. This must have been how they communicated silently, but they weren’t very subtle about it. “But we, well, I, had a couple credit cards stolen last year,” Charlene said. “Someone charged thousands of dollars on them. We got the money back, but it was the other damage that really hurt.” She had all our attention. “Because they had the credit cards, they somehow got access to other accounts. It was strange, but we think they got a hold of my social security number via the credit card rewards points. We still don’t understand it, but the bank said it could happen; it was my case that caused them to change some of their policies. Anyway, this person or these persons were able to get a loan for a hundred thousand dollars. I got the statement with a first payment-due letter. We got it straightened out and I didn’t have to pay back the loan, but someone got away with the money.”

If the people who were stealing credit cards were also the ones killing and kidnapping, then what Charlene was saying threw the not-sophisticated angle out the window. I had no idea it was in any way possible to steal someone else’s credit card and ultimately end up with a healthy loan.

“From a credit card, they got a hundred-thousand-dollar loan?” I said.

“Yes, in a roundabout way, I guess.”

Gram whistled. “Blasted plastic. Back in the day we couldn’t buy anything unless we had the cold hard cash for it.”

“Excuse me,” I said as I left the group and pushed through the front doors to the reception area. I pulled out my cell phone and hit speed dial.

“Betts?” Cliff said as he answered. “Everything okay?”

“Fine. Cliff, is the bag still there?”

Cliff sighed. “Yes, we still have it under surveillance.”

“What if it’s just a diversion? What if the person or persons killing and kidnapping knew Jake would call the police and the police would put all their efforts into watching the stupid bag? Not many people know how much help Jim has brought in.” I’d called Cliff on something that was less than a hunch. It was just a notion based on the credit card thefts and poor execution of the notes given to Jake. I had nothing substantial, nothing at all, but it just felt right.

Cliff was silent a moment. “What makes you think so?”

“Did you talk to Charlene and Vivienne or the others in the group about the items they’ve had stolen in the recent past? You know about Cece’s cards from this trip, but Charlene had one stolen last year. It got ugly. Something’s going on within the group itself. I think it’s someone inside the group.”

“We talked to everyone. Some have had some cash disappear, and one thought a ring was missing but we just got notice that it has been found. No one mentioned past credit card thefts. Maybe we didn’t ask the right questions. We only asked if anything had gone missing on this trip—we didn’t say credit cards specifically except when we were talking to Cece. If she had knowledge of past thefts, she didn’t mention them.”

“No one talks to Cece, she doesn’t talk to anyone either. If Charlene and Vivienne shared the past robberies with the others, Cece might not have even paid attention. Did you know Greg Carlisle had a first wife?”

“Yes. Georgina told us about Austin. She’s in Texas. We’re trying to reach her.”

I didn’t know what else to say. I cringed. What was I doing calling the police about this? It just all seemed somehow pertinent. If it had been anyone but Cliff, I wouldn’t have called. I knew Jim, but I still wouldn’t have called him. Maybe I was just overthinking something I probably shouldn’t be thinking about anyway.

“Okay,” I said.

“Thanks, Betts. I’ll call you later.”

We hung up and I sat down on one of the lobby chairs. The evening had gone from amazing to enlightening to consoling to downright confusing. Who had killed Greg Carlisle, and where were the other two foodies? Were they even still alive? Did the murder and disappearances have anything to do with the missing credit cards?

Suddenly, the faint scent of wood smoke seemed to travel through the reception area. I launched out of the chair and ran outside to the border between the cemetery and the parking lot.

“Jerome?” I said.

The floodlight still hadn’t been turned on, so as I looked around, all I saw were the milky shadows caused by the streetlamp. If Jerome was there, I would see his glow. He wasn’t, and it seemed that no one else was either. There was no answer to my question, and as I sniffed more deeply, I no longer smelled the smoke. I’d probably just imagined it.

“Hey.” Jake joined me outside. “We wondered about you.”

“I needed some air,” I said.

“Oh yeah?” He wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for earlier,” he said quietly.

Hopefully we’d all learned our lesson, though; people could be watching anywhere at any time.

“Did you see her?” I whispered.

“Very briefly, but it was enough. She looks just like her pictures. Very pretty for a killer.”

“I was thinking the exact same thing.”

“She was convicted, remember?” Jake said.

“I do, but I also know how women were treated and thought of back then. We’ve come a long way, baby. I don’t know enough about the trial to know if there was controversy, and I haven’t had time to look at all of Edgar’s cagey notes, but if he shows up and sticks around a few minutes, maybe we can ask him.”

I couldn’t see Jake’s face clearly, but his head was tilted as though he pondered the idea. “That might help,” he finally said.

“What do you have on Sally’s sister, Jane?”

“Very little. I know that after her parents were killed and after Sally died in jail, she became a hermit. She wasn’t seen or heard from much for the next thirty or so years, and then she died alone and lonely.”

“Do you know anything about her personality before her parents’ death and Sally’s trial? Sally verges on bubbly sometimes. Was Jane that way, too?”

“I don’t have any idea. What has Sally said?”

“I haven’t asked that yet. I will.”

“That’s a pretty general topic. Maybe she’ll remember it easily.”

“Good point,” I said.

“I think Charlene and Vivienne will stay and talk to Miz all night if someone doesn’t do something to let them know the party’s over,” Jake said. “Should we announce that it’s time to go home?”

“Yeah,” I said, distracted as I looked around one more time.

Jake looked around, too, but didn’t ask me what we were looking for.

“Come on, Betts, let’s tell the ghosts—all of them—good night,” he said.

Jake knew me way too well.

“Betts, wake up.” The light scent of lavender filled my nose
as the voice spoke in my ear. Though I knew who was talking, my brain didn’t want to participate in her request. “Wake up,” she said more adamantly.

“What time is it?” I pulled myself up into a sitting position and looked at the clock on the nightstand. I had to blink hard to clear the blur from my eyes. Its red numbers said 3:16. Since it was dark outside, I deduced that that meant
A.M
.

“I don’t know, but I need you to wake up. I remembered something, something important.”

“Important how?”

“About me, about what happened to my parents.”

I scootched up a little straighter and blinked away a little more of the blur. “What happened?”

“I truly don’t know, but what I remember might help us
figure it out. Can you get the reporter’s notebook? Maybe there are notes to back up what’s coming to me.”

I flipped on the light and watched Sally go from her dark dimensionality to her lesser ghostly self. I blinked some more, remembered I’d last had the book in the kitchen, and then went to gather it.

I’d been looking at it earlier with a late-night cup of tea, thinking that Sally would show up at any minute and we could discuss the note I’d read about the local pharmacist. He’d said that Sally had been in his store the week before her parents were killed, attempting to purchase some prussic acid. This, followed by her sister Jane’s testimony that her parents had seemed ill with “stomach malaise” for a few days before they were killed, didn’t add up well for Sally.