Second To Nun (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 2) (8 page)

Seventeen

Instead of taking Mac’s hint, Giulia followed her out to the backyard. The floodlights illuminated a sad, dripping, filthy mess of couch cushion remnants and scorched iron. Off to one side, Ronnie the detective was typing into a small tablet.

“Call Jeanie for cleanup,” the firefighter was saying to Mac. “Her team’s not the fastest, but they’re thorough. This won’t take them more than a day. Can your Matthew repaint the furniture?”

Mac didn’t answer right away. Her gaze kept moving from the fire pit to the furniture to the patio stones and back around again.

“Mac?”

“Yes, yes, sorry. Matthew can paint. He’s done it before. I think I have some left over from last year.”

“Okay. We triple-checked everything, of course. All that’s left is the mess. Ed took all the pictures you’ll need; he’ll send them to your insurance rep for you since the firebug took your laptop.”

Mac shook herself. “Thanks. I’m sure I’ll see this tomorrow morning as a mess to clean, but right now all I want is a glass of wine and my bed.”

The firefighter gave her a one-armed hug. “Understandable. Come on over and wrap things up with the police first.”

Giulia couldn’t get close enough to the detective to listen in without being obvious. She also knew better than to unlock the office and mess with a crime scene. Mac would be hearing about that from her before the end of this night.

A hand with pink fingernails shot out from the living room and grabbed her arm.

“Giulia,” CeCe hissed. “What’s going on? Where’d you go? That cute reporter would’ve put your picture in the paper too, I bet.”

“I tried calling my husband, but he’s still at work.” Every so often Giulia Driscoll, former nun, was appalled at how smooth a liar Giulia Driscoll, private investigator, had become.

“He’s not a caveman, is he? He won’t swoop in and rescue you just because poor Mac got robbed?”

Giulia laughed. “I can take care of myself.”

“Oh, good, because you have to be here for the real séance. Have to be! After what happened upstairs and down here, who knows what will happen when an actual psychic tries to contact the ghost?” CeCe yawned. “Sorry. I’m dead on my feet and it’s barely eleven o’clock.”

“I need a bed too.” Giulia started upstairs and CeCe took the hint.

When Giulia was alone in the hall, she tiptoed downstairs and found Mac at the trestle table finishing a glass of chardonnay.

“Mac, here’s the key to your office. It’s a crime scene. You should know I can’t go in there.”

Mac ran her hands through her hair. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. I’ve got to call LifeLock and cancel every damned credit and bank card I own.”

“I’ll get out of your way, then. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Giulia left Mac pounding the keypad on her phone and headed to her room for real. Not until she sat on the bed to call Frank did she remember she’d muted her ringer. Which turned out not to matter, because the phone was down to one percent battery. She’d never stopped the recording when the fire broke out.

“Professional of you, Driscoll. A good investigator shouldn’t get distracted by a little arson.”

She plugged it in, turned on the ringer, and four voicemails appeared. All from Frank. She hit redial.

“Hi, honey.”

“
Cac naofa
, where the hell have you been? What happened? You were supposed to check in at eight.”

“I, sir, have been participating in a séance, watching an amateur succeed at arson and theft, and eavesdropping on police and firefighters.”

Silence.

Giulia chuckled. “I’ve never reduced you to silence before. Score one for me.”

Something Irish Giulia figured was much worse than “holy shit” came from the phone. She kept her voice calm and even as she summarized the evening.

“Lock your door. Where’s your gun?”

“I will, dear, and it’s close at hand. I’m more interested in reading the police and fire reports.”

“I am more interested in my wife taking precautions against nearby criminals.”

“Frank, you’re cute when you regress to Neanderthal. Don’t worry. I’m alert and aware and will remain so even while sleeping. What time will you be here tomorrow?”

“After lunch unless we can turbocharge this wrap-up. I’ll do my best.”

Giulia woke from a Cinderella dream of scrubbing soot from endless floors. The room was so quiet without Frank snoring. She fluffed her pillow and turned on her side, sinking toward sleep again.

Someone in the hall started crying.

Giulia lay there, eyes closed, unsure if the noise was part of another dream. The sobs came again. She opened her eyes and gave herself a moment to adjust to the moonlight in the room. Then she slipped out of bed. Shirt. Underpants. Capris. It’d be enough. She checked the nightstand clock. If a real person was this miserable at two a.m., he or she wouldn’t care if Giulia’s boobs bounced with every step. And if it was a ghost…did ghosts care about boobs?

She picked up her phone and tiptoed to the door. Her hands remembered an old convent trick for Novices sneaking out of their rooms after all good nuns were asleep. Hold the door closed with the left hand and turn the handle with the right. If you kept the motion smooth and even, when the latch receded from the faceplate into the door it would make no noise.

Muscle memory triumphed. Without a sound she opened the door just enough to squeeze through, then closed it the same way.

Dark hall. The moon at the wrong angle to light the stained glass window. Library door open; other bedroom doors shut.

Giulia stood in place, her breathing shallow. The crying appeared to come from downstairs. She felt her way to the banister and counted the steps. The creaking ones were, she remembered, the fourth and second from the bottom. She used the banister to vault over both. She stopped on the wooden floor in front of the antique baby carriage. The moon shone through the floor-to-ceiling windows in the sunroom, making the doll’s eyes glow.

That particular decoration could be put in storage any time and Giulia wouldn’t miss it.

The first floor smelled ever so faintly of smoke. More weeping to her left distracted her from the blackened furniture outside, impervious to the moonlight. Was that a shadow of something (someone?) in the little souvenir room connecting the house to the lighthouse? The moonlight was bright enough for her to keep navigating without the flashlight app on her phone. The sobs receded as she entered the room. The small windows cut the available light by three-quarters. Giulia stood still and closed her eyes for a count of ten. The crying took a breath and restarted. When she opened her eyes she could see well enough to avoid running into that suit of armor and waking everyone in the house.

Another glimpse of something on the lighthouse stairs. Giulia followed into near-pitch darkness. The sobs floated above her. Giulia set one foot on the lowest step.

And stayed there. She’d seen this movie and read this book. She was not Daphne or Shaggy and this was not a
Scooby-Doo
cartoon. Her thumb flicked up the bottom of her iPhone screen and pressed the flashlight app. A second later she aimed the blinding light up the stairs. The sobs stopped. Nothing white moved above her as she angled the beam against the walls and the spiral railing. Now she heard no sounds.

Giulia climbed back upstairs, angry but remembering to skip the noisy steps. If this prankster liked games, Giulia would squash him or her like a hassled teacher corralling an unruly kid at the end of recess. She climbed into bed, wondering how many grade schools scheduled outside recess anymore. Wondering how the trick with the nightgown worked. If it had been a nightgown…

Eighteen

The aroma of coffee woke Giulia from a dream she didn’t want to remember. This wasn’t her bed. She reached out for Frank and her hand patted a quilt. A seagull squawked outside her window and she opened her eyes.

Right. Stone’s Throw.

She showered and dressed and headed in the direction of coffee. Everyone she’d met last night stood at the sunroom windows staring at the patio.

“It doesn’t look as awful as I expected,” CeCe said.

Giulia’s expectations must have been different, because it looked pretty much like her Cinderella dream had predicted. A ragged circle of smoke and soot discolored the flagstones. Charred wood floated in the miniature pool that used to be the fire pit. The remains of gutted patio cushions lay scattered on the grass. The couch and chairs, despite blistered and peeling paint, merely looked like they’d been antiqued by an amateur.

“Breakfast, everyone.” Mac’s voice was cheerful again.

“Oh, yes, the siren song of bacon,” Gino said.

“And waffles,” Joel said.

Mac and a young woman with short, straight blonde hair set a plate of waffles, bacon, and sausages next to a cup of melon balls at each place setting.

When all the guests were seated, Mac took the empty head chair and set a folded newspaper on the table.

“Good morning, and welcome to Stone’s Throw. I apologize for last night.”

Gino said, “Mac, you mean the police and fire truck and news reporters weren’t part of this week’s entertainment?”

Mac’s smile seemed less than sincere. She opened the paper and displayed the front page. The huge sans serif headline read “ARSON AT STONE’S THROW.” Below it, a three-column-wide photograph of the flames. Inset, as promised, a smiling CeCe and Roy. Below it, a formal picture of Mac.

“This isn’t exactly the front page publicity I hoped for. My phone’s been ringing nonstop since five a.m. The good news is, the idiot crackhead pawned my laptop already and the police promised to get it back to me today. It helps to know everyone’s mother in a small town.”

Roy chuckled and then found a sudden need to drink more coffee.

“There will be a lot of activity around the inn today. I’m sorry to have to ask everyone to stay out of the backyard.”

A chorus of protests amounting to “Don’t apologize. Of course we understand.”

“Thank you. Now I’ll leave everyone to enjoy breakfast. The syrup is the real thing, and all the other ingredients are locally sourced. Afterwards I’ll conduct a tour of the lighthouse.”

Giulia hated to rush a breakfast as perfect as the one in front of her, but business was business.

She played the old game of pretending to get a text that had to be answered, and left the table.

Mac was on her cell phone in the working kitchen and gestured Giulia inside.

“Thank you,” Mac said into the phone. “You’re worth your company’s exorbitant monthly fee. I don’t anticipate the same service when I go to the DMV today…All right. I’ll expect your call before noon.”

She hung up. “LifeLock,” she said to Giulia. “Spent half the night on the phone with them. They’re earning their money today.”

“I’m sorry. Do the police have any leads they’re willing to share with you?”

“They’re not saying much, but they’ve rounded up the usual suspects. Conneaut Lake has a few. My money’s on the meth addict or the crackhead, like I said in there. Quick cash for a fix and all that.” She held up a black leather purse. “My perfect straw bag still hasn’t shown up, and this is all wrong for summer. My mother is turning over in her grave.”

Giulia didn’t take the crooked path to distraction. “It would help if the police know why I’m here. That way I could ask for access to the reports.”

Mac’s short white hair flew around her ears, her headshake was so violent. “No. I want everyone here and in town to think you’re just another guest. They won’t let information slip otherwise.”

Giulia made an acquiescent gesture. “Then I must ask for all information they give you as soon as you know it.”

A nod replaced the headshake, the hair tickling Mac’s chin. “That I can and will do. Anything it takes to get my property back under my control.”

Giulia, mindful of good customer service, didn’t point out the many contradictions in Mac’s last few statements.

Mac stood. “They should be done eating. Come on the lighthouse tour. I give a sensational talk on our family history and the ghost. We can lock ourselves in the carriage house afterwards.”

Giulia did not channel her years of teaching high school and point out that at least she knew better than to tell the client how to do her job. She returned to the dining room, made a despairing face over her cold breakfast, and dumped the melon balls on the top waffle. With a folded waffle in one hand and a slice of bacon in the other, she gave vague answers to CeCe’s and Joel’s questions about evil people who call during vacation breakfast.

Mac and Lucy cleared the dishes and Mac returned alone.

“I’m glad you all enjoyed breakfast. Now it’s time for the history of Stone’s Throw. All of you returning guests, please feel free to walk out on this anytime. After several visits, you probably know the stories almost as well as I do.”

Polite laughter from all. Marion and Anthony, who turned out to be the plump woman and the silver-haired man from last night, excused themselves. “We rented a sailboat for the morning.”

“CeCe, Roy?”

Roy said, “We’re beach bums today and we take our jobs seriously.” He looked at his watch. “We’ve already missed four minutes of prime morning swim time.”

Mac gestured toward the bedrooms. “Far be it from me to hold you back.”

They ran upstairs.

Mac turned to the last couple. “Joel and Gino, you too?”

Gino said, “We’re in. We’ve only seen you perform with the spooky Halloween background. We want to see if it’s got a different feel in the summer.”

Mac smiled at him. “Okay, then. My great-grandfather built Stone’s Throw as his family home. His business had prospered and he decided it was time to work on his bucket list. He’d always wanted to live in a lighthouse. The obvious fact that Conneaut Lake didn’t justify one made no difference to him. He built the house and the lighthouse tower, moved his family in, and launched fireworks from the top of the lighthouse every Independence Day. The local authorities issued a summons for endangering the nearby residences each year, for which he dutifully paid the fine and the next year launched more fireworks.” She winked at her guests. “My family has a history of seeing how much we can get away with.”

She trailed her fingers over the back of Marion’s empty dining room chair. “My great-grandmother was the queen of estate sales. The family who originally owned this furniture brought it over from their ancestral manor in England. Did anyone feel like you were being watched while you ate? The faces of the nineteenth-century family members are carved into the chair backs.”

Giulia tipped her chair and found the face of a young girl with elaborate ringlets carved into it.

“Teak is sturdy,” Mac continued. “Even after two hundred years of people sitting against the chairs, details are still sharp enough to recognize. Since everyone came here before caffeine, you may not have noticed the table legs. They’re chess pieces: A king, queen, bishop, and knight.”

On cue, Giulia crouched at the corner of the long table. She also gave the underside of the table a second examination, but found no added séance equipment. Joel and Gino took selfies with the calico cats that had wandered in during Mac’s opening speech.

“We want to take Tweedledum and Tweedledee home with us, Mac.” Joel radiated charm post-caffeine.

“You ask for them every year,” Mac said, smiling. “Usually you try to lure them into your car with catnip. And the answer is still no.”

They hung their heads in unison.

“You’ll just have to come visit them next year. This way to the good part: The lighthouse.” As she passed the doll and carriage, she said, “We found this little lady in a box in the attic. The box took the brunt of the weather and rodent damage. I think she looks happy to be down here with people again.” Mac waited a beat. “I chose not to use the Stephen King-worthy clown doll we found up there instead. You’re welcome.”

Laughter.

Giulia and Joel both shivered as they passed the doll. Mac stood by the framed photograph nearest the doorway as everyone filed into the souvenir room.

Mac walked to the first occasional table. “My grandmother built these miniature lighthouses. She got the local stores to stock them and used the money to furnish her own trousseau.”

Giulia said, “Entrepreneurship runs in the family.”

Stone nodded. “Every generation of Stones has at least one self-starter. This spring my youngest nephew bought the boat rental and repair shop way down the street. The hat’s been passed.” She skipped the next photographs and crouched in front of the model. “Last stop before we climb into the lighthouse.”

She turned a clasp on one side of the house and opened it to reveal a period-piece replica of the B&B. She picked up two of the many miniature dolls populating the open rooms. “My great-grandmother made a doll for every member of the family. One Christmas two of my cousins crafted tiny beer cans and cigarettes for all the dolls. The older generation was not pleased; that is, the women weren’t, but the men thought it was a hoot.”

Gino and Joel kept passing a small piece of paper back and forth between them. Joel wrote something on it as Gino said, “Mac, we give you points for family friendliness, but so far the Halloween version is tons better.”

Mac laughed. “If I went through the whole Woman in White story with all its embellishments here in the middle of summer, I’d look like a loon. A ghost story needs the proper atmosphere.”

“Nooo,” Joel said.

“You have to give the new guest the full Stone’s Throw treatment,” Gino said. “What did you bring in Lady Solana for if not to make your family ghost work all year ’round?”

Mac smiled at them as though they were her favorite pupils. Giulia wondered in all seriousness if the men were plants, like in a stage magician’s audience.

Mac walked over to a glassed-in bookcase filled with souvenir mugs, local preserves, and keychains with lighthouses that lit when you pressed a button.

From behind a plastic picture frame with a price list, she took an eight-by-ten photograph.

“This is one of the pictures I took during the remodel. We practically had to gut the first and second floors. It’s a shot of the space where Giulia’s room is now.” She held it out.

Giulia took it. Joel and Gino stayed back, grinning.

“Something…white?” She walked over to the window. “Maybe. It could be glare on the lens.”

“Oh, man, a skeptic,” Joel said. “Don’t you watch those ghost hunting shows?”

Giulia handed back the picture. “I’m more of a
CSI
type.”

Mac said, “I didn’t see anything when I took the pictures, and I was too busy for the next few months to think any more about them. When the carriage house, where I live now, was being remodeled in turn, I slept in each of the rooms here to get a feel for the place and to see what needed further improvements.” A pause. “One night in the Sand Dollar room I saw something.”

Giulia could hear Sidney’s head explode all the way from Cottonwood.

“I’m a big old chicken. I didn’t move from that bed ’til I heard the construction crew arrive. Then I set out to get my hands on every bit of family history I could scare up, no pun intended.”

Joel and Gino said together, “What did you find?”

“We have a family tragedy. I always wonder if the poor thing appreciates the attention we give her or if she feels exploited. Come up to the lighthouse gallery with me and I’ll give you the short version on the very spot it happened. The reconstructed spot, that is.”

As they walked past the suit of armor, Joel and Gino handed Giulia their phones.

“Would you take our annual picture with Sir Rusts-a-Lot?”

Joel draped himself against the armor’s right arm and Gino snuggled up to its spear. Giulia took several pictures as the men changed one silly expression for another.

Mac climbed two steps and delivered the rest of her pitch from on high. “We keep everything here in excellent repair, but the stairs are steep. Please watch your step.”

Gino took the little paper and wrote on it.

The cylinder was stuffy and cramped with the sun on it, and their steps bounced around the tapering space as they climbed higher. Mac reached the catwalk and walked around it to the narrow opening in the glass.

A breeze touched Giulia’s face. She hadn’t realized how hot she’d become.

One by one, they climbed up to the catwalk and stood in a circle around the light.

“Now we pretend I’m telling spooky stories around a bonfire up here, where no thieving crackhead can ruin the fun. One autumn night a young bride of one of the many Stone brothers waited for her husband to return from a trip to the far end of the lake. She paced the Widow’s Walk. That’s what lighthouse galleries used to be known as. Isn’t Widow’s Walk much more picturesque? As the moon rose, she saw her new husband sailing toward her in his dinghy. When he was only a quarter-mile away from the lighthouse’s shore, the wind changed directions and ripped the boom out of his hands. While she watched, horrified, it whipped around and cracked open his head. He fell into the water, leaving a trail of blood gleaming black in the moonlight. His wife instinctively reached out as she cried his name. The wind caught her skirts, unbalanced her, and she plunged over the wooden railing to her death on the paving stones below.”

She paused and took in her audience.