Haunted Homicide Read online

“But nothing,” Muriel snapped. “It was stupid. Not to mention illegal. There’s no smoking in this building. You know that.”

  “I do. I do,” Agnes wailed. “And I did quit for a while; it was my New Year’s resolution. But things haven’t been easy at home, you see, what with me dealing with my mother’s affairs now that she’s in assisted living. And on top of that, as vice president I’ve had to pick up a lot of the club manager’s responsibilities, and . . .” Her explanation dissolved on the end of a sigh and she looked my way. I wasn’t sure if she was hoping for sympathy or just trying to explain herself to the one person there who hadn’t already heard her excuses.

  “I was irritable and feeling the strain. I couldn’t help myself. I just had to have a cigarette. Then I sat down on the couch up in Marigold to relax and enjoy it, and I guess exhaustion got the best of me. I fell asleep and the next thing I knew . . .” The memory overwhelmed her and a shiver cascaded across her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I was weak and it nearly cost me my life. I swear, I’ll never, ever light up another cigarette. I could have been killed.”

  A rush of color stained Muriel’s cheeks. “Get over yourself, Agnes! Our records are in that room. The history of this club! And the whole building might have gone up in a puff of smoke. Then what would we have done? Are you listening? Maybe it will finally sink in. Whatever might have happened to you, you deserved it for your carelessness. But what would we have done if the Portage Path Women’s Club burned to the ground because of you?”

  I’d like to report who said what at that point, but it was a little hard to tell. Voices overlapped—outraged, hurt, insulted.

  “How can you be so cruel, Muriel? This is too much, even for you.”

  “You know the fire was nothing but a terrible accident!”

  “It could have been worse. It could have been much worse. We’re really very lucky.”

  Far be it from Muriel to back down from a confrontation, even when it was three against one. “Horse hockey!” She snorted. “No one with half a brain goes sneaking a cigarette in a historic building like this. And in the room where all our valuable documents are kept!” She pinned Agnes with a look and when Agnes squirmed, Muriel’s thin lips lifted in a smile.

  “It was almost as if you wanted to burn everything in the Marigold Room, Agnes. Is that true? I can’t imagine why you’d want to do that. Or maybe you were looking to go down in the annals of the club as some sort of martyr.” Muriel’s harrumph was both indignant and disgusted. “That would be just like you. Bad enough some of our precious records were destroyed and can never be replaced. You would have died from smoke inhalation, Agnes, if Bill Manby didn’t show up to save you.”

  “Bill.” One corner of Patricia’s mouth pulled tight. “He’s our maintenance man, grounds keeping and such,” she told me. “At least he used to be. Last week, he was a hero. He dragged Agnes out of the Marigold Room, used a fire extinguisher to put out the flames, and called the fire department. And how was he rewarded?”

  Muriel’s smile dissolved, her lips thinned into a tight line. “I had no choice,” she grumbled. “In the absence of a business manager, hiring and firing decisions are the president’s. It’s in the club’s charter. I had no choice but to fire the man.”

  “After he saved Agnes’s life?” I know, politically incorrect to sound so outraged, but it’s not like I could help myself.

  If I needed the reminder, it came in the form of Muriel’s icy glare. “There were issues,” she hissed. “Once you’re officially on the job, you will be apprised of them. Until then—”

  “Until then, you expect poor Avery to be here for a meeting when she hasn’t even unpacked her bags yet, you criticize the way she’s dressed even though she thought all she was going to do today was move into her rooms, but you won’t keep her in the loop when it comes to how you sacked Bill? It’s just like you, Muriel.” Patricia’s dark eyes bulged. “You and your damned noblesse oblige. You think you’re better than everyone.”

  “That’s because”—Muriel stood—“I am.” She glanced over all of us ever so briefly, her gaze landing on Agnes long enough to make her squirm. “I’ve got the family tree to prove it.”

  Like her shoes were on fire, Patricia hopped out of her seat. She propped her fists on her hips. “I always knew you were an elitist. I just wish you’d quit trying to prove it.”

  Muriel glared at Patricia.

  Patricia glowered for all she was worth.

  Gracie, shaky and breathless, pulled herself up and wedged herself between them. “Now, girls, let’s not get carried away. You remember the motto of the club: Friendship, Loyalty, and—”

  “Snobbery!” Patricia barked.

  “Maybe,” Muriel snapped back. “But at least I don’t want to open the doors wide and invite every bit of riffraff in the neighborhood in for tea!”

  Patricia chortled. “You’d rather see the club go under? Become even more irrelevant than it already is? There are people out there”—she swung out an arm, maybe taking in the neighborhood, maybe indicating the world as a whole—“people out there who could be real assets to this club. People with interesting ideas. People with incredible talents. Just because their blood isn’t as blue as yours doesn’t make them any less worthy. Look around, Muriel. Wake up! If we don’t do something fast, this club is going to go under. How would you like that to be your legacy? Muriel Sadler, the last president of the Portage Path Women’s Club! We can change that, don’t you see? If we open up our doors and become more inclusive—”

  “Over my dead body!” Muriel narrowed her eyes, and her hands curled into fists.

  Patricia let out throaty growl.

  Gracie mumbled something about decorum. Like anyone was listening.

  Agnes started up again with the waterworks.

  It was at this point I thought of clapping my hands and stomping my feet. It might have at least stopped them in their tracks. I actually would have had the chance if the front door didn’t open and a man didn’t step into the club.

  Our restorationist?

  I would have bet any money on it.

  With Gracie trying to run interference, Agnes sniffling, and Muriel and Patricia still going at each other like Rocky and Apollo Creed, I rose from my chair and went to the door.

  “Mr. Harkness?”

  As if he wasn’t quite sure, he pushed his dark-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked down at me.

  Yes, down.

  There’s nothing I like better than a man who is actually taller than me.

  Not that I was thinking of liking Jack Harkness. Right about then, I was only hoping to introduce some sort of voice of reason into what was happening all around me before he caught wind of the knock-down-drag-out and hightailed it for the hills.

  I put out a hand. “Avery Morgan,” I said. “The club’s business manager. I understand you’re here to look at the damage in the Marigold Room.”

  He had a leather portfolio tucked under his right arm, and he shifted it to his left. It bulged with papers and when a couple of them slipped out and fluttered to the floor, he retrieved them, mumbled something about getting organized, and finally shook my hand.

  His hand was large. His fingers were long and cold. His palm was warm.

  Jack Harkness was six feet three inches of scruffy hair that was more red than brown, and eyes that were green and had a faraway look in them, like his body was there at PPWC but his mind was a million miles away. He was dressed in rumpled khakis and there was a leaky pen in the breast pocket of his blue-and-white pinstriped shirt. Try as I might, it was hard for me to pull my gaze away from the splotch of black ink.

  It was a Rorschach.

  A dog.

  No, a moose.

  No, a fairy-tale cottage complete with thatched roof and stone walkway.

  I slipped my hand from his an
d stepped back. “Since Mr. Harkness is here, I guess it’s time to get started,” I said nice and loud so the women could hear me over their own sniping. “Muriel . . .” I spoke just in time. She was about to say something to Patricia about the responsibilities of the upper class. “Muriel, since I’m not familiar with the building yet, perhaps you’d like to lead the way to the Marigold Room.”

  Of course she would.

  Her face frozen with the sure and mortifying knowledge that our guest might actually have taken note of her bad behavior, Muriel shook her shoulders and blinked. Her fingers twined together, she nodded by way of greeting, and I couldn’t help but think about what I’d just heard, how Muriel thought she was better than everyone else. Here she was, the queen welcoming the peon who’d come to do her bidding.

  I just hoped this particular peon, rumpled clothes and all, knew a whole lot about repairing fire damage.

  I let Muriel and Jack step past me and go to the elevator first. They got in and stood at the back and Patricia made sure she stayed as far away from Muriel as the tiny elevator allowed. Gracie was next, so small she took up hardly any room at all, then me. I stepped inside and pushed the button for two (the only floor the elevator went to). A few smooth seconds later, we stepped out into the hallway with its walnut-paneled walls, its silver sconces, and the portraits of past presidents of the PPWC watching us parade past.

  I swear, I could feel their eyes on me as we walked by, checking me out, judging me. They were a matronly bunch, well-heeled and well connected. They’d married well and devoted their lives to the club. Every one of them was dressed in black, every one of them was wearing pearls and the kind of expression that said being in charge of PPWC was Serious Business.

  I wondered what they thought of a kid from a crazy family in Upstate New York and figured it hardly mattered. If they approved, if they disapproved, I still had a job to do.

  We stopped in front of the closed door of the Marigold Room at the end of the hallway and because Jack was at the front of the pack, he swung the door open. Even from where I stood at the back of the line, the smell of charred wood and burnt paper caught me by the throat.

  Muriel, Patricia, and Gracie stepped back, their hands automatically covering their mouths. Agnes sniffled. When Jack tried the light switch (it didn’t work), then stepped into the room, I sidled my way past the members of the PPWC and went right along.

  Even if I hadn’t seen it before, I would have known the room had once been beautiful. The carpet was (well, once upon a time) a soft beige, and the walls—I leaned forward for a better look—were papered in white with pretty blue ribbons swooping and swirling around bunches of yellow and gold marigolds.

  There was a fireplace along one wall, with a couch, table, and reading lamp facing it. One corner of the couch was blacker than the rest of it—testament, I suppose, to Agnes’s confession that she had fallen asleep there with a cigarette in her hand. Two of the walls in the room were filled with bookcases, their shelves crammed with books whose leather bindings were blackened and cracked from the heat of the fire and ashy from its smoke.

  Though no one had suggested it, I crossed the room, opened the draperies, and flung open a window. A gush of fresh air slapped my face and I pulled in a lungful and felt my head clear.

  “Better?” I asked Jack. Except he was so busy snapping pictures of the wallpaper, he wasn’t listening.

  “Nineteen forty-five,” he said, jotting the date in the notebook he opened.

  “Nineteen forty-five, as in . . .”

  “That’s when this particular pattern of wallpaper went into production,” he informed me.

  “And you know this because . . . ?”

  He’d been staring at one particular bunch of marigolds, the gold edges of the flowers blackened and sooty, and he glanced my way. “I’m the restorationist.”

  I figured he was going for funny so I smiled.

  Jack went back to looking at charred marigolds.

  I gave him some time to do whatever it is restorationists do and while he did it, Muriel, Gracie, and Patricia stepped into the room. Agnes trailed behind, her expression gloomy and contrite.

  We watched him poke at the wall with the tip of his leaky pen. We stood quietly while he jotted notes. We followed along, silent and like we actually knew what we were doing, as he did a turn around the room, checking out the mahogany table next to the couch and the small marble statue on it, one I’d seen on my first visit and knew was one of the club’s prized possessions.

  “Hortense Dash,” I told Jack just as he set down the statue and rubbed his sooty hands on the leg of his pants. “She was the first president of PPWC.”

  He didn’t say if he was impressed. In fact, he didn’t say anything, and after a few more minutes of listening to the scratch of his pen against his notebook, I thought it was time to get some details.

  When Jack stood in front of the bookcases, tapping his chin with one finger, I asked, “What’s the plan?”

  He thought for a while longer before he finally said, “I’ll need to do an inventory.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “No, duh!” but I managed to control myself. My first day of almost being on the job was probably not the time for that.

  “After that, I can do an assessment of each object in the room and determine what’s worth saving and what isn’t,” he added.

  “You must preserve the club’s records.” Muriel hovered near the bookcases. “Who knows what kinds of valuable information are in these books. I know they look hopeless, but . . .” Her expression folded in on itself and maybe the harsh reality of what had happened there in the Marigold Room made her feel a little more charitable when it came to Agnes and her part in it all. Muriel actually looked to her for an opinion.

  “Don’t you agree, Agnes?” she asked. “You’re our vice president and we all need to support this effort. Don’t you agree that we need to make sure we keep every single historical document that’s important to the club?”

  Agnes edged over to the bookcases. There were a couple volumes down at the end that looked unscathed, and she made to slip one from the shelf.

  “I wouldn’t do that.” Jack stepped forward, one hand out to stop her. “The flames may not have touched those particular books, but the heat and smoke may have caused plenty of damage. We need to go through everything one careful step at a time.”

  “Can you give us an idea of how long it will take?” Patricia wanted to know.

  He didn’t spare her a look. But then, he was cocking his head left and right, studying the spines of the leather books on the shelf. “Too soon for that. I won’t know anything for a while.” He’d been so focused on the books, so lost in whatever thoughts fill the heads of restorationists, when he spun my way, I flinched. “Can you give me work space?”

  Since I wasn’t sure, I glanced over my shoulder to Muriel, who stepped right up. “The Lilac Lounge is right across the hallway,” she said, motioning that way. “It’s set up as a study right now, a place where our members can read and catch up on their correspondence. We can change that. We can push the sideboard over nearer to the windows, move some furniture around, have a desk brought in for you and—”

  “Really, Muriel?” Patricia settled her weight back against one foot and folded her arms over her chest. “Who’s going to do that? Bill Manby?”

  Muriel’s lips pinched. “Obviously not.” She turned and swept out of the room. “She’s the business manager. Avery will simply have to take over all the maintenance and grounds keeping tasks for now.”

  I opened my mouth to say something that would have probably sounded a whole lot like, “Are you nuts?” but I never had a chance. Once Muriel was gone, Gracie, Patricia, and Jack followed. Agnes stared at the blackened books for a moment, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, before she, too, turned and walked out.

  “Well,
doesn’t it figure?” Not that anyone was listening, but I threw my hands in the air and made sure I added a grumble to my statement. “It’s not even my first day on the job and I’m already getting work piled on.” I set my jaw and told myself, “Better get to it.”

  Just as I got out the door of the Marigold Room, though, I stopped cold.

  There was music playing somewhere in the building, music I hadn’t heard earlier.

  “No, not music,” I told myself, listening a little closer. Just a voice. A woman’s voice, throaty and passionate.

  She was singing “Bye Bye Blackbird.”

  Just as quickly as I’d heard it, the song was gone, and I dismissed it as a passing car and a way-older-than-oldies radio station. At the same time, I shook away the funny little cascade of shivers that tapped along my shoulders like bubbles climbing up the side of a glass of champagne.

  I had work to do, I reminded myself.

  I headed to the Lilac Lounge. I might as well see what I was in for.

  CHAPTER 3

  I could just wring that Muriel Sadler’s neck!”

  I was following the delicious aroma of coffee and I’d gotten as far as the restaurant when I heard the angry growl explode from the club kitchen. The words barely had time to register when a pot holder came winging through the doorway, headed straight for my head.

  I ducked, leaned, avoided the flying object, and recovered it with as much aplomb as a woman who’d just nearly been assaulted with a pot holder could.

  I marched into the kitchen, slapping the pot holder against one leg. “What’s going on here?” I demanded.

  Over near the stove, the face of a big guy (I mean, like Terminator big) morphed instantly from raging to embarrassed. His cheeks flushed the same color as the red bandanna that held his dark, curly hair out of his dark eyes.

  “Were you . . . ?” He looked toward the doorway, where I’d nearly been creamed. “Were you standing there? I . . . I swear, I didn’t see you,” he stammered.

  “Or you did and that was your way of welcoming me to the club.”