Second To Nun (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 2) (9 page)

“Joel and Gino, are you passing notes in class?”

They started and looked guilty for a second. “Mac,” Gino said, “you’re one square short of Stone’s Throw bingo.”

“I’m what?”

He held up a paper divided into nine squares. “So far you’ve hit the dining room table, the doll and carriage, the clown doll no one has ever seen, the doll house, the miniature beer cans, the suspicious photograph, the night you were too scared to get out of bed, and how the stairs here are in excellent repair, but be careful so you don’t ruin everyone else’s holiday by falling and breaking your neck. Just one more and we fill the bingo card.”

Giulia bit her lips to keep her composure. Mac looked startled, but a moment later she laughed. “You two could be my wayward nephews. If I catch you distributing that bingo card to anyone else, I’m adding fifteen percent onto your bill.”

At that, Giulia managed to turn a laugh into an unladylike snort.

“As I was saying,” Mac scowled at the bingo players, “the family legend concludes with the hint that on windy nights or nights with a bright moon, the widow’s ghost wanders up and down the lighthouse stairs and Widow’s Walk, waiting for her husband to rise from the lake and join her.”

“Bingo,” Joel and Gino whispered together.

Mac didn’t acknowledge them. “That’s all I can tell you about any ghost who might or might not haunt Stone’s Throw. But no one really believes in ghosts, right?” She cut off any possible discussion by stepping through the glass door. “If you follow me to the gallery, I’ll show you the best view of Conneaut Lake you’ll ever see.”

When Giulia stepped outside, the breeze hit her like a breath of winter. Ahh. She moved to the side, squinting against the glare of the sun on the water. The brown shingles of the B&B’s roof directly below her brought out the greens of the grass, and far ahead of her, the darker green of the pine trees lining the lake. The sky above her rose up forever and the breeze smelled of cool water and fresh hot dogs and cotton candy.

Off to her right, Mac pointed out the spot in the lake where the long-ago Stone husband met his untimely demise. “Where Giulia is standing would be the approximate spot the young Mrs. Stone fell to her death.”

Giulia looked down at the wide patio stones. She gripped the railing and shook it because that’s what anyone would do, even though she’d already performed this railing test last night.

Mac said, “Every guest who stands in that spot shakes the railing.”

Giulia conjured a faint blush. “It’s your storytelling skills, Mac. Plus my strong self-preservation instinct.”

“This railing was one of the few things I changed in the restoration,” Mac said. “I hired a local woodworker to carve all the pieces in this swirl pattern. It reminds me of waves.”

“What else did you change?” Giulia asked. “Authenticity is one of the charms here.”

“Modern plumbing,” Mac said.

Giulia pictured a quaint and malodorous chamber pot in her bedroom and shuddered. “I can’t argue with that.”

Nineteen

“Mac?” A hassled voice came from the foot of the spiral stairs. “The cleaners are here.”

Mac poked her head through the opening in the glass. “Be right down, Lucy.” She reentered the catwalk and gestured Giulia, Joel, and Gino in after her. “That’s the Great Stone’s Throw Ghost Story. What do you think?”

Gino started down the stairs and Joel said, “It’s all wrong for a beautiful summer morning. I think you should tell the story over the bonfire, adding that the ghost sometimes crawls out of her grave when she hears her story being told. Then Lucy could creep up behind the newbies wearing a beat-up wedding gown all covered with dirt. Have her wear fake fingernails that are really long when she puts her ghostly hand on someone’s shoulder.”

Mac paused by the suit of armor. “I may steal that idea.”

“Anything for the baker of Sunday’s Bananas Foster pancakes.”

They headed upstairs with Giulia behind them to retrieve her iPad. When she came down to the sunroom, two men and a woman had taken over the backyard. The woman, in a muted mauve plaid business suit, had to be the insurance adjustor. She and Mac conferred over several papers on a clipboard while the men walked around and over the patio. A third older man in jeans and work boots joined them. Giulia took several pictures with the iPad. Mac signed papers and the men attacked the cleanup. The insurance adjustor disappeared around the parking lot side of the building. Mac came into the sunroom and picked up two stray coffee cups from a shelf of board games.

“They promise me I’ll have my patio back tomorrow. It would be tonight, but the paint on the furniture has to set,” Mac said. “Now my house insurance rates will go up. Come on. I’m all yours.”

Mac deposited the coffee cups in the kitchen and Giulia went out to the porch to scratch the white-muzzled beagle behind the ears.

“All the guests spoil Jabberwocky.” Mac continued down the steps.

Giulia followed her into the carriage house. Unlike the studied antique restoration décor of the B&B, Mac’s private house was spare, clean, and modern. Giulia slipped off her sneakers to walk on the cream-colored rugs.

Mac sat on the center cushion of a pale green couch. Giulia chose a complementary armchair in coral and opened her iPad. “No ghost has visited me in the Sand Dollar room.”

Mac fidgeted with something in her pocket. Giulia refrained from quoting Tolkien, even though Gollum’s voice in her head said, “What has she got in her pocketses?” She also kept last night’s spectral sobs and white nightgown sighting to herself for now.

“Is today’s newspaper correct? Was it arson last night?”

Mac leaned forward as though she were leaping at a safe conversation opening. “Another advantage of small town life: No official backlogs. They found a small container of lighter fluid in the fire pit. It wasn’t the brand we use here.”

“And the office?” Giulia typed it all in.

Mac made a face. “No fingerprints except mine and Lucy’s, of course, and a solid smudge of prints on the screen door. Useless.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

Mac snorted. “You could say so.” Her phone rang. “Excuse me. Yes?...Damn that thieving bastard…Thank you…Good…Thank you.” She stopped her hand’s downward motion only a few inches short of slamming the phone on the coffee table. “Our firebug used my credit card at the Walmart over in Meadville. Kept it to twenty-four dollars’ worth of stuff so he didn’t have to sign for it. The police are checking the video feed.”

Giulia hit save. “Ghosts don’t need to shop at Walmart.”

Mac didn’t smile. “Maybe not, but this ghost could be causing this run of bad luck.”

Excellent. When the client gives the proper opening they don’t feel coerced.

“What bad luck? Specifics, please.”

“Right. We’ve had two other accidents in the last three weeks. A water pipe burst last week. Pipes don’t burst in summer weather. Before you ask, yes, I had all new pipes installed as part of the renovations. The break flooded part of the cellar. I lost some supplies and my guests had to take cold showers for two days. I took a percentage off everyone’s bills for that.”

“What did the plumbers say?”

“A fat lot of nothing. They tossed a bunch of jargon at me that netted out to they had no clue what caused the accident.”

Giulia flexed her hands. The miniature keyboard on her tablet took some getting used to.

“Are you ready? Three days ago I came over to the B&B earlier than usual and the whole working kitchen reeked of gas. I ran downstairs and shut off the feed. Everything down there was normal. I called Lucy and she came over early. Together we took apart the stove. One of the hoses at the back was unscrewed.”

Giulia opened her mouth.

“Don’t you tell me that ghosts can’t tamper with gas lines.”

Giulia’s “no snapping at the client” count got as far as seven when Mac said, “Now get ready. This is what I expect from you.”

“No.” Giulia didn’t snap, exactly. “First I need several things from you. A list of your recurring guests and the weeks they usually stay, with addresses and phone numbers. The addresses and phone numbers for you and your employees, including the new psychic. Any threatening emails or letters you may have received since the date your problems began.”

A mottled red flush crept from Mac’s collar up her long neck. Her lips thinned to invisibility. If the waves of anger and offense surging from her were supposed to intimidate Giulia, Mac was about to be disappointed. Her upper-management ire was cake compared to one of the convent’s spiritual reviews. Giulia had survived five nuns with the most authority grilling her on how deeply she embodied Franciscan ideals, how the world viewed her as what a true, proper, devout Sister should be, and their dissection of the holiness of her spiritual life. Annually.

A client going all self-righteous and “I’m in charge” at her? A Care Bear.

The next moment, the tension snapped. Mac’s lips reappeared as she said, “I’m much too used to ordering people around.” The flush receded. “A hazard of being queen of all I survey, I suppose. Why hire an expert if I’m not going to listen to you? I can’t get those lists until I have my laptop again, but I can get you the possible start date of my troubles. I’ll be right back.”

Giulia stood and walked back into the entrance hall to inspect the watercolors hanging there. The sunsets and fishing boats and lighthouses in all four seasons shrieked “amateur.” Sure enough, “Mac” and a date hugged the lower right-hand corner of each painting. Eh. Giulia’s hobby was growing her own food. No finger-pointing here.

“Where are you? I found it. Oh. When I have any free time, which isn’t often, I drag out the easel and floppy hat and go all artiste on the lawn. Here.”

Giulia took the newspaper dated this past May fourteenth. Mac pointed to the callout above the masthead. “This Week’s Local Spotlight: The Stone’s Throw B&B: Page 8.”

“The paper ran one article a week in the month before Memorial Day,” she said. “My article didn’t go viral or anything, but I got reservations from a handful of first-timers.”

Giulia scanned the article as Mac kept talking. “I pulled out all the stops: Great-Grandpa’s lighthouse where none was needed. The legend of the family gold. The family ghost’s death and haunting. The eager young intern was astounded that an old lady ran this place all by herself.”

“That astonishment comes across in his writing.”

“I know. He made me into a combination of Wonder Woman and Julia Child.”

Giulia kept reading.

Mac Stone’s great-great-great-grandfather, Joshua Aloysius Stone, spent his life despoiling rich travelers. That’s right, readers. Our peaceful tourist haven boasts a descendant of a real Wild West highwayman. He was a fastidious highwayman, according to his great-great-great-granddaughter: He only took the travelers’ gold. Alas, the law caught up with him and hanged him for his deeds. But our Mac says the family has an enduring legend of Joshua Aloysius’ secret hoard.

“No one’s ever found it,” she told this reporter as we stood high up on the Widow’s Walk of Stone’s Throw lighthouse. “As kids we were told our family black sheep revealed the location of the gold to his wife before he died, but no other Stone has ever found it.”

As Mac finished my tour of her luxurious yet affordable inn, I asked her about the Herculean labor she undertook when she chose to turn the abandoned Stone house into a working Bed and Breakfast.

“It didn’t come cheap,” Mac said as we watched the sun set over Conneaut Lake from Stone’s Throw’s flagged patio. “People have asked me if I had to discover that stash of highwayman’s gold to pay for all of this, but the truth is I emptied fifty years’ worth of savings to make Stone’s Throw happen.”

Giulia looked up from the newspaper. From that suspicious pocket, Mac brought out a single gold coin. “Behold the Stone family treasure. One Liberty five-dollar gold coin. Depending on which collector I show it to, it’s worth between two hundred fifty and four hundred dollars.”

“So you’ve embellished a colorful legend?” Giulia handed the paper back to her.

Mac chuckled. “That’s a polite way of saying I’m a big fat liar.”

Giulia’s “displeased teacher” face appeared. “That’s not at all what I meant.”

Mac’s spine stiffened. “Did you used to be a teacher? My college science teacher used to get that look and it never meant anything good.”

Giulia let her teacher face return to the past. Oh, yeah. She still had it.

Mac returned the coin to her pocket. The doorbell rang. The detective from last night stood on the asphalt.

“Ronnie, tell me you have good news.”

“Yes and no. Here’s your laptop. Sign, please.” He held out a carbonless receipt form on a clipboard.

Mac signed and took the bottom copy. “My tax dollars are well spent. What’s the bad news?”

“No sign of your purse or anything in it besides the MasterCard used at Walmart.”

“Out of respect for your official status, I won’t give voice to what I’m thinking.”

The detective’s face gave nothing away. “I have more good news to make up for the lack of purse contents. We also caught the guy who pawned your laptop.”

“Yes.” Mac punched the doorframe. “Was it our friendly neighborhood crackhead?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but this time it was one of the meth addicts. He and his friends have been particularly active since we busted up their lab in the woods behind Anderson’s farm.”

“Tell me you can pin the arson on him and I’ll give you and Sheila a free overnight stay here.”

“Mac, please don’t bribe your local law enforcement.” He shook his head. “We will use everything in our power to find the firebug. Arson is bad for tourism.” This time he allowed himself a small smile. “Since this charmer scored heroin with the pawnshop money and is coming off the high as I stand here, we expect him to vomit every thought in his useless head before my shift ends.”

“Good.” Mac’s voice was hard. “Did he screw with my laptop?”

“Our guy says not as far as he can tell. According to the timeline of events, he pawned it right after he left here and used all the cash on horse. You should change all your passwords anyway.”

“Miserable waste of skin.” Mac shook the detective’s hand. “Thanks. Maybe I’ll have my psychic curse him with genital rot.”

The detective’s smile became derisive but he left without comment.

Giulia left her spot in the hallway and returned to the living room before Mac.

Mac gestured with her head to a nook opposite the television. “It’s a good thing I moved my old printer over here since my office is still off-limits. This one is slower but I’ll be able to give you all the documentation you asked for.”